In July of last year I began to take the heat from readers after I said the Valerie Plame-Karl Rove “fiasco” was “politics.”

I said that Democrats hate Rove with the same zeal that Minnesota Viking fans hate Brett Favre. I summed up my comments this way... “The real fun part of this is the grand jury investigation looks as if it will come to several innocuous conclusions including that Plame's status didn't require secrecy and Rove didn't ‘out’ anybody.”

I couldn’t have guessed the feathers my comments would ruffle.

Letters came in from New York to Washington state.

C. Ash Ellefson of Cortland, N.Y., wrote to say, “Your editorial on the Democrats and Karl Rove could have been written only by a committed partisan who ignores Rove's history.”

Sherry Retherford of Olympia, Wash., said. “So, Mr. Johnson, you think that Rove's outing of a covert CIA operative is comparable to a game? Do you read the newspaper? People are dying in your game. You do your country, military and subscribers a disservice by trivializing an act of cowardice and dishonesty (and possibly treason) by a member of the current administration.”

David Krier editor of the Boscobel Dial, wrote an editorial that said I thought the Rove-Plame fiasco was a “joke.” Mr. Krier said the outing of Plame was “in retaliation” for her husband's op-ed piece in the New York Times which accused the Bush Administration of “exaggerating the Iraqi threat.”

In the end, people told me I had offended them, that Rove was to be compared with the most evil characters in this world, and that the Bush Administration was guilty of dirty tricks.

Now that we can test this all against the truth that’s come out over time, what do we know? Confirmed by the journalists involved and the source himself, State Department bigwig, Richard Armitage, not a member of the Bush Administration, was the source of the leak of Plame’s name.

Furthermore, Plame never worked as a CIA agent in a covert role. She was known by her real name, Valerie Plame, regarding her dealings inside the CIA. Everybody and their brother in Langley, Va., knew Valerie Plame worked for the CIA — including Armitage, who didn’t think it was a big deal dropping her identity to Bob Woodward and Robert Novak. Patrick Fitzgerald said in concluding the special investigation into the matter that Plame's employment with the CIA was not undercover, but "classified." Everything at the CIA, FBI, NSA, Pentagon or White House car wash, is classified.

Indeed a Bush Administra-tion official has been indicted in this matter, the Vice President’s former Chief of Staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, but that indictment was for allegedly not telling the truth to the grand jury. If there’s anything these grand juries have proven over time, it’s that they’re good at nabbing people for lying, but horrible at actually finding anybody who committed a crime related to the original point of the investigation.

So, to recap. Armitage, a critic of the War in Iraq and no friend of the the Bush Administration, was the source of the Valerie Plame leak. And, to anybody at the CIA, or in the greater circle of friends inside or outside the CIA, they already knew she worked at the CIA. As did, as speculated by those in the blogosphere, many who sipped a martini with Joe Wilson and his wife inside the gossipy "Georgetown Cocktail Circuit.”

David S. Broder, writing in the Washington Post last week, said that many media outlets owe Karl Rove an apology. It may be a surprise to readers, but I don’t think that’s necessary.

From the start this whole fiasco has been about politics. It’s partisan and it’s nothing new. Rove’s been up to his eyeballs in it on the other side.

Yet, it’s amazing how little print and broadcast attention the Armitage admission has generated. Reporters camped outside Rove’s house for weeks. The national media proves, once again, it’s irresponsible.

As for me, why did I originally write about it? I thought it was pretty easy to see it for what it was — politics. People disagreed along party lines. No big surprise.

I’m no standard bearer for the Bush Administration, far from it. As I age the cynical eye through which I view the government focuses more clearly. Republicans and Democrats? Mostly, they’re all scoundrels.

You can e-mail Matt Johnson at matt.johnson@lee.net