Limbaugh on the Plame scandal:

Rush on Monday (from his website): (excerpts, emphasis added)

The media, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and others are salivating over the manufactured story about the supposed leaking of former ambassador Joe Wilson's wife's name by the White House. Yet Wilson is not objective. He's an anti-Bush member of the pro-Saudi Middle East Institute, which wanted to end the no-fly zones allowing Saddam to slaughter the Kurds and Shiites - and it was known his wife worked for the CIA!

Despite the previously manufactured charge that this White House is "secretive," nothing in this administration's performance indicates it hides anything.

Manufactured story?   Supposed leaking?   How will Limbaugh be able to defend that claim after reading this in tomorrow's Washington Post:

Another journalist yesterday confirmed receiving a call from an administration official providing the same information about Wilson's wife before the Novak column appeared on July 14 in The Post and other newspapers.

The journalist, who asked not to be identified because of possible legal ramifications, said that the information was provided as part of an effort to discredit Wilson, but that the CIA information was not treated as especially sensitive. "The official I spoke with thought this was a part of Wilson's story that wasn't known and cast doubt on his whole mission," the person said, declining to identify the official he spoke with. "They thought Wilson was having a good ride and this was part of Wilson's story."

And for fans of The Paranoid Style in American Politics, check this out from another Limbaugh commentary: (excerpts, emphasis added)

Joe Wilson ... has fed this conspiracy theory that the White House leaked his CIA operative wife's name to discredit him and endanger her.

Don't jump to conclusions on this Wilson thing, because I think some of you are going to be very surprised when we get to the bottom of it. What do I mean by that? Well, we know that there are a number of Clinton administration holdovers in the Bush administration - particularly in the State Department. Bush has not cleaned them out.

posted by Quiddity at 9/29/2003 09:34:00 PM