..was at last simplifying itself, with the recent Armitage-was-the-leaker revelation, the entire thing has complexified once again withNovak mysteriously turning on Armitage,his former protected source.

I’ve been trying to follow it throughout, after all I covered Watergate, I folowed Watergate in all its complexities. I know who ordered the burglary (do you? are you sure?), but I have to admit, I feel I’ve fallen behind with this new round of Plame mystification. The only person who both seems to have all the data in his head, and whose skepticism about the hysteria of the past year has been largely proven right has been this one fellow Tom Maguire. a one man demonstration of a blogger’s ability to out think, out analyze just about every mainstream reporter on the case.

Scroll down to his September 13 and 14 th posts on the fracas between Armitage and Novak and you’ll get a flavor of just how Joycean in its complexity the new developments have made the Plame morass. I have to confess, I’m once again at a loss and for the first time I couldn’t quite follow Maguire although I know he was on to something. Yes, I’ve praised blogs like firedoglake, and I think Empty Wheel is the real deal, but they both are highly partisan. Maguire has his politics too,and I’m more liberal than him on most issues, but on Plame he seems genuinely inquisitive a quality in short suppply in a blogosphere that likes tohave its facts conform to its convictions.

Spend just one minute reading Just One Minute on the Plame case and you can get lost, but in a good way.