ARMITAGE IN THE PLAME CROSSHAIRS?….Steve Clemons writes today that former NSA director Bobby Ray Inman thinks Patrick Fitzgerald is gunning for Richard Armitage. Dan Drezner, who was at the same conference and sat with Inman at lunch, comments:
3) There was more that Inman said, and I’m tempted to spill all the beans ? but I’m not going to do it. It would be unfair to Inman, who has probably never heard of danieldrezner.com and would not necessarily have known he was talking to a blogger with any kind of audience. I know this stinks to the reader, but that’s what my ethics tell me to do here.
4) Related to (3), it is my understanding that what has been blogged here is pretty much common knowledge inside the Beltway. I am genuinely surprised that it hasn’t appeared anywhere else in the blogoshere.
If the entire conference was clearly off the record, then fine. But if not, isn’t it about time to ditch the idea that it’s not fair to quote public figures because they might not have known they were talking to someone with a blog? I mean, what are the odds that at a lunch table at a big public conference, nobody sitting there had a blog? If you blab at lunch with a dozen people listening, you really can’t expect everyone to treat it like a state secret.
At least, that’s how it seems to me. But then, maybe that’s why I don’t get invited to conferences like this.
