ABCGate

I am with James Lileks. I don't much care that the Clinton administration paid little attention to the jihadist threat. Not many people were paying attention back then, myself included. As Lileks, puts it: "Just so you know: 9/11 reset the clock for me. All hands went to midnight. I’m interested in what people did after that date..." By this standard, the Democratic Party ca. 2006 is an abysmal failure: opposed to the NSA surveillance program, opposed to detaining al Qaeda combatants at Guantanamo and opposed to trying them in military tribunals, opposed to the war in Iraq, etc., etc.

But I can't get too worked up about the Dems trying to keep ABC from showing their TV movie docudrama, "The Path to 9/11." It's a TV show. It's not supposed to be historically accurate and, frankly, very few people are going to watch it -- I'll bet if it gets a 15 rating they'll say it's a "hit," but that's a lot less than any Tony Danza comedy's worst night. The Dems just look silly protesting it, and we should let them look silly and laugh at them.

But I do think it is humorous to consider a parallel. Here, ABC is going to broadcast a movie that has political implications two months before an important election and Democrats have threatened their broadcast license. In 2004, CBS broadcast a "news" story -- the story about President Bush's military service that led to Rathergate -- that had political implications two months before an important election. Can you imagine what the MSM would have done if Republicans had threatened CBS' broadcast license?

Plamegate Flames Out

The Washington Post's editorial board, which, because of the New York Times' descent over the past few years into partisanship and paranoia, now reigns as the center of the MSM universe and a source (albeit left-leaning) of what remains of serious, responsible, adult, mainstream journalism, has now officially put the Valerie Plame "scandal" to sleep. Here is today's article. Here is the money quote:

...all those who have opined on this affair ought to take note of the not-so-surprising disclosure that the primary source of the newspaper column in which Ms. Plame's cover as an agent was purportedly blown in 2003 was former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage.

Mr. Armitage was one of the Bush administration officials who supported the invasion of Iraq only reluctantly. He was a political rival of the White House and Pentagon officials who championed the war and whom Mr. Wilson accused of twisting intelligence about Iraq and then plotting to destroy him. Unaware that Ms. Plame's identity was classified information, Mr. Armitage reportedly passed it along to columnist Robert D. Novak "in an offhand manner, virtually as gossip," according to a story this week by the Post's R. JeffreySmith, who quoted a former colleague of Mr. Armitage.

It follows that one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House -- that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame's identity to ruin her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson -- is untrue.

One question: Where does Scooter Libby go to get his reputation back?