Two Martinis at the Ramsey Clark School of Iraq

Christopher Hitchens, the martini-slinging Brit import, writes in his latest piece about Richard Armitage and Valerie Plame that any irony observed in the apparent intention that Armitage held in leaking Plame's name was entirely the invention of the media. The intense inter-departmental war between the neo-cons in the Bush administration and various officials at State and the CIA, he posits, is the larger issue here. Put aside the tensions within this administration, and I think it is tough to argue that what many have thought most troubling about the Plame Affair is the political hardball played against Joseph Wilson in his Times op-ed for bringing public doubt to the reasons for invading Iraq. That intense hard line has done away with the public service of Colin Powell, Armitage, and George Tenet, as well as Valerie Plame.