I've been following the Valerie Wilson saga pretty much from the beginning, though (as with most things) I haven't commented on it here. I have made a few comments on it (under the SN ENDER) here. I also made comments on an earlier thread, but it seems to be history. They do tend to delete unused threads very quickly there, so don't be surprised if the above link no longer works.

Anyway, the entire matter is extremely troubling and the Bush Administration needs to get on top of it in a hurry. I never thought Ari was very good, but his replacement looks to be even worse. They need to investigate it and charge whoever is responsible if appropriate, fire them if not, or, failing that, explain why neither of those options were best. It seems quite clear to me that whoever did it, did it with malice aforethought - and if they didn't, they need to be fired for stupidity anyway. It seems to me that Mark Kleiman has done the best job keeping abreast of the unfolding story, and although I have historically disagreed with the majority of his positions and conclusions (he is a lefty after all), I have also found him to be quite honest. In fact, I am making this post in something of a response to his noting that the "right" blogosphere hasn't been commenting much. Though let's note that my readership probably hovers between 0 and 1 (and that's only when I'm looking myself).

I myself don't quite know what to think. It's crystal clear to me that whoever Novak's source was tried to smear Joe Wilson, but in possibly the most moronic way possible. It's astounding how short-sighted it was. In fact, it's so obviously a stupid thing to do (even absent the other reasons not to do it) that the whole thing doesn't make sense from the few pieces of the puzzle currently available. The aforementioned Mark Kleiman has thought of a scenario that would seem to resolve the contradictions somewhat, and I think that it may turn out that the real truth of the matter is somewhat similar to what he envisioned. As a bonus, it would put Bush in perhaps the best light of any other scenario I can imagine. Whatever the case may be, Bush & Co. need to do the right thing and clean house.

PS I do have ONE single bit of information that I seem to be the only one to come across. Or maybe it's so insignificant that no one else has bothered. That's me though, dealing in overlooked minutia. The information pertains to what her name really is. Though most people I have seen have decided to call her Valerie Plame, let it be noted that in all of Joe Wilson's online bios it says that he is married to "the former Valerie Plame". It seems pretty clear that she doesn't go by Valerie Plame anymore. This would seem to leave two choices: Valerie Wilson or Valerie Plame-Wilson. If you'll note, I refered to her above with the simpler Valerie Wilson. I chose it because I came across the following website:

http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/Polonnoye/PolList.htm

This appears to be a geneology list on people investigating certain names from a particular Ukranian city. Someone who identified themself as Valerie Wilson was looking into the background of the name Plame. The E-mail account given would seem to match her husband's name (with her first initial substituted for his middle initial), so I think that Valerie Wilson is the most appropriate name to use at this juncture. Unfortunately, nailing down the right name didn't help me turn up any more information from Google as I had hoped. The E-mail address didn't help either.