I’ve listened to the released clip of the Armitage-Woodward audio taped interview probably a couple hundred times now and there are a few things that stay with me that denote further importance, IMO.
My interpretations:
First of all one of Armitage’s main purposes(maybe THE main purpose) of having the interview at all was to tell Woodward that Wilson’s wife worked for CIA. (how ‘bout that?) This seems to be the case with Novak also.
Second, Armitage had direct talks with Joe Wilson about the Niger trip in the not too distant past(prior to the interview).
Third, Armitage was shilling for the Agency and specifically George Tenet. Just seems odd that the number two man at State sounded more like he was really the number two man at CIA.
Also, the overlying tone of the interview was to discredit the Administration and not Joe Wilson.
So we now know the President never gave any orders to out Ms. Plame yet it seems pretty obvious that Armitage was on a campaign to do just that.
The questions then become:
Why?
Who ordered him to do so?
or maybe What consensus was formed to proceed to do so? Between whom? And what was the overall objective?
All considered, it’s seems ‘not a partisan gunslinger’ was not a very good description at all when talking of Richard Armitage, IMO.
From what you've written, I'd have to agree.