End of the affair

An op-ed in the Washington Post argues the Plame-Wilson affair ended with both shotgun barrels bending back on the perpetrator. Now if only people who've already formed an opinion on the subject would notice how it all ended.

... it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.

Mark Coffey is "absolutely flabbregasted" at the Post's accurate summation of events, which is sad in the way that watching an immigrant from the Third World marveling that the electricity works is.