Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose public criticism of the Bush administration prompted the White House to leak the identity of his undercover CIA agent wife, will reveal his thoughts on the leakers in a book to be published in May.
It appears, at this point, that Wilson doesn’t really know who gave Robert Novak the story, only that he has some informed opinions on the matter.
I applaud Wilson and his tenacious criticism of the administration, and I’m anxious to hear his thoughts on this scandal, but to be fair, his credibility on naming the perpetrators of this crime was damaged a bit in September. Last summer, at a forum in Seattle, Wilson pointed the finger directly at Karl Rove.
“At the end of the day, it’s of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs,” Wilson said. “And trust me, when I use that name, I measure my words.”
A couple of week later, it appeared that Wilson could have measured his words even better. In a September interview with Josh Marshall, Wilson started backing away from the specifics of the Rove charge. On September 29, Wilson appeared on Good Morning America and was in full retreat on the accusation, saying that when he implicated Rove, “I think I was probably carried away by the spirit of the moment. I don’t have any knowledge that Karl Rove himself was either the leaker or the authorizer of the leak. But I have great confidence that, at a minimum, he condoned it and certainly did nothing to shut it down.”
I’m not saying Wilson is no longer credible, only that he’s levied a charge before, only to retract it shortly thereafter.
I suspect, however, that Wilson has learned from that ordeal and that his book, “The Politics of Truth,” will take a measured, deliberate approach to exploring who illegally leaked his wife’s name to the press. At a minimum, Wilson’s text, and its accompanying publicity, will help refocus attention on one of the most disturbing political scandals of the Bush White House — just as the campaign season is heating up.