Fitzmas Update 7/3/06

Murry Waas for the National Journal reports on what Bush told Fitz. Basically, the story is that Charlie McCarthy told Edgar Bergen to do whatever was needed doing to make embarrassing information go away. Bergen in turn told Mortimer Snerd to go embarrass the guy who had embarrassed them. And when Mortimer Snerd was asked by criminal investigators what happened, he lied. Charlie McCarthy, however, told Fitz he was just a wooden-headed puppet, which wasn't a lie. Various explanations exist for Snerd lying: • "did not want to admit that he was disseminating material gleaned from classified information" • "could have feared the loss of his security clearance or his job" • "he worried about embarrassing Cheney and Bush [Bergen and McCarthy]" • "was trying to obscure Cheney's [Bergen's] role in the Plame leak -- either by the vice president directing Libby [Snerd] to leak her CIA status, or through a general instruction from Cheney [Bergen] encouraging Libby [Snerd] to get the word out about Plame's role in sending Wilson to Niger" • "it is also possible that Libby [Snerd] lied to conceal the fact that he leaked Plame's identity to the press without Cheney's [Bergen's] approval"