More speculation on Plame affair

I'm in DC this weekend, spending my days at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The Working Group of the Project on Preemptive and Preventive Military Intervention is meeting -- under the auspices of the University of Pittsburgh's Ridgway Center for International Security Studies.

Today, some of us were talking about the failure of the press to cover the UPI story alleging that Lewis Libby and John Hannah are the guys who leaked Valerie Plame's name.

It occurred to me that the media's relative silence might reflect the story. Remember, whoever leaked called a handful of reporters. Thus, if those reporters or their media outlets run this story, they almost serve as sources confirming the story.

This could mean that one or both of the named guys are not the sources.

Or, it might just mean that those reporters don't want other reporters calling for them to confirm or deny the names. It's interesting.

At least one person at the Working Group confirmed that a well-known reporter had told him that one of the two named people is accurate. Sorry for the ambiguity, but this is still kind of iffy to me.

I also had a conversation with another scholar about blogging. I told him about my blog because he's planning some sort of scholarly discussion of the "blogosphere" later this year. I'll let you know when I hear more about it.