The record is set straight yet again, this time by Clarence Page. But for all those folks who continue to leave comments on this site disputing what Libby did, I doubt it will help.

…Valerie Plame was a covert agent under the relevant 1982 law that makes it a crime to disclose the identity of a covert intelligence officer. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald cleared up that dispute in a memorandum during the sentencing phase of Libby’s trial. “It was clear from very early in the investigation,” he wrote, “that Ms. Wilson qualified under [the 1982 law] as a covert agent whose identity had been disclosed by public officials, including Mr. Libby, to the press.”

…yes, Armitage did leak Plame’s name to columnist Robert Novak, who was the first to report it to the public. But Armitage was not the first or the only leaker. Weeks before Novak reported Plame’s name in his July 14, 2003, column, Libby revealed Plame’s CIA job in meetings with then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller on June 23 and July 8. Novak also received confirmation of Armitage’s tip from Karl Rove, Bush’s senior political adviser. Rove also discussed Plame, without mentioning her name or covert status, with Matt Cooper, then of Time magazine…

Alas, Libby was snagged by a version of the old Watergate rule: It was not the initial “crime” but the cover-up that got him. Fitzgerald could not find enough evidence to meet the law’s high threshold of proof to prosecute the leak of Plame’s identity. Libby’s false statements did not help…

I sympathize with the public’s confusion about this. I blame the drumbeat from Libby’s supporters who don’t let facts get in the way of a lively argument. I thank the researchers at Media Matters for America, the liberal media watchdog site, for their assistance in helping me collect examples. They include:

- William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard on NBC’s “Today” show: “… I would remind Joe Wilson that Scooter Libby did not leak Valerie Plame’s name. Richard Armitage told Robert Novak, we now know …”

- Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani in a Republican presidential debate: “I think the sentence was way out of line, … grossly excessive in a situation in which, at the beginning, the prosecutor knew who the leak was, and he knew a crime wasn’t committed.”

- Republican former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee in an ABC radio commentary: “The leaking of Valerie Plame’s name didn’t constitute a crime because she was not a ‘covered person’ under the relative criminal statue.”

And FYI, all you doubting posters. We really did land on the moon. And the Nazis purposefully killed millions of Jews in the 1930s and ’40s.