Eric Edelman, Hillary Clinton, and Valerie Plame

Amanda starts her post with something from Bill Clinton as she notes something from ABC News:

Clinton said Undersecretary Eric Edelman was “wrong” to send a letter to his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., criticizing her request for a briefing from Pentagon officials about military plans for a future withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq … In an interview with ABC’s Kate Snow in Lusaka, Zambia, Bill Clinton called Edelman “one of the more ideological holdovers” in the Defense Department. I think it’s wrong to politicize national security,” he said.

Then Amanda links to Mary Wheeler:

He’s the bright guy who first suggested leaking Plame’s identity to rebut Joe Wilson. And, as it turns out, he realized after he suggested to Libby that the information in question may have been classified.

After a June 2003 article about Iraq and the uranium issues that caused concern to Edelman and Libby, Edelman asked Libby whether information about how the Wilson trip came about could be shared with the press to rebut allegations that the Vice president sent Wilson. Edelman testified that Libby responded by indicating that there would be “complications” at the CIA in disclosing that information publicly. Ambassador Edelman indicated that he understood that he and Libby could not further discuss the matter because they were speaking on an open telephone line and Edelman understood that this might involve classified information.

Edelman then went on to write a leniency letter, hailing Libby’s loyalty, with no concern that–as the guy who first suggested the leak – the invocation of loyalty reeked of impropriety. You can’t take someone like that seriously!

Even though Edelman put his letter in the public domain, I have heard some of the rightwing water carriers trying to blame Senator Clinton for letting this go public. Then again – these same hacks blamed Ms. Plame for her own outing by Dick Cheney and his minions.