There seems to be little doubt that one or more officials high in the Bush administration knowingly and deliberately leaked that fact that Valerie Plame, wife of former ambassador Joe Wilson, was an undercover agent for the CIA. That this leak followed by a few days the publication of Wilson's letter to the New York Times disputing the administration line on Saddam and Niger leaves little doubt that the leak was intended as retaliation against Wilson for exposing the president as a bald-faced liar.

Since that time, there has been a virtual blizzard of reports and allegations that Plame was responsible for sending Wilson to Niger and therefore (inexplicably to this writer) no one in the administration violated 50 U.S.C. §451. Ergo Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is on a vindicative witch hunt.

Can someone explain to me how Plame's sending Wilson to Niger, or suggesting his name, or influencing in any way the CIA's decision to send him to Niger, exonerates the leaker? Until a reasonable explanation emerges, I think it is fair and reasonable to assume that the rightwing noise machine is throwing up the Chewbacca defense.