One (More) Toke Over the Line
Fitzmas Follies

Hunter at Daily Kos points to this tidbit by former UPI reporter Richard Sale at his blog Sic Semper Tyrannis 2005 regarding where Libby's information on Plame/Wilson came from:

According to the Times account, Cheney told Libby the covert name of the wife of Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. diplomat who had publicly alleged that the administration had mishandled of intelligence relating to Iraq's nuclear weapons programs.

But several former and serving U.S. intelligence officials strongly disputed this. "That is simply not accurate," a very former senior CIA official told this repoter. "Libby's notes on this are misleading and inaccurate or both."

This source, supported by three others, alleged that it was a telephone call from the Department of State that first gave Libby the name of Plame.

The name of the caller? No one is sure. But these sources said that the call defintely came from the State Department office of John Bolton, then the arms control chief of the department.

These same sources alleged that two employees of Bolton, David Wurmser, a virullent pro-war hawk, first told Libby that Valerie Plame had sent Wilson to Niger to attempt to discredit the administration's line on Iraq's nuclear weapons programs.

These same intelligence sources alleged that Wurmser, as Bolton's special assistant, got his knowledge of Plame's classified identity from a colleague in his office, Frederick Fleitz, a CIA officer detailed to Bolton's office from the agency who worked in the CIA's Weapons Intelligence Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Center (WINIPAC.)

"We do not know yet which of the two called," the former very senior intelligence official said.

Alright. I think I'll let the spec-u-lation die down and just get myself ready for the announcements, starting with the documents release in a little over an hour.

Happy Fitzmas everybody!