Wilsons get a setback in suit against Cheney, et.al.

CNN:

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by outed spy Valerie Plame and her husband against Vice President Dick Cheney and other top Bush administration officials.

Plame had accused members of the Bush administration of leaking her identity. To knowingly disclose classified information to unauthorized recipients is a crime, and Plame's position was classified.

U.S. District Judge John Bates said the lawsuit raises "important questions relating to the propriety of actions undertaken by our highest government officials." But in a 41-page decision, he found Plame and her husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, failed to show the case belongs in federal court.

Plame's identity as a CIA operative was exposed in July 2003 after Wilson publicly challenged a key argument in the Bush administration's case for the invasion of Iraq. The couple argued the disclosure destroyed her career and was done to retaliate against Wilson, who said the administration had "twisted" the evidence used to justify the invasion.

Bates, a Bush appointee, agreed with defense arguments that federal law protects Cheney and the other top administration officials from being sued for actions taken as part of their official duties.

The way the defendants handled criticism from Joseph Wilson "may have been highly unsavory," the judge wrote, but "there can be no serious dispute that the act of rebutting public criticism ... by speaking with members of the press is within the scope of defendants' duties as high-level executive branch officials."

...

Someday the Wilson's will realize that the left has been using them the way they used Cindy Sheehan as an excuse to attack the Bush administration. The left does not give a hoot over real CIA agents being exposed, much less one working a desk job at Langley.

While the people sued may be relieved to avoid the hassle of the litigation, they are probably somewhat disappointed to not get the chance to put the Wilsons through the discovery process and find out what classified information may have been improperly handled in their quest to use that information for political purposes to undermine administration policy.

Then there is the possibility that the Wilsons were trying to distract from the fact that Ms. Wilson's agency was the one responsible for much of the information on WMDs that could not be verified after Iraq was liberated.

One of the most intriguing factoids in the Wilson affair is Joe Wilson's false claim that he knew there was no attempt to buy yellowcake by the Iraqis because of the Italian forgeries which were not discovered until after the trip. Did Valerie disclose classified information about the forgeries so that Joe could leak them to the media?

I think the current forgery scandal in France may eventually lead to these Italian forgeries which were used by the French foreign ministry to try to undermine the case for war.

Gateway Pundit has more on the dismissal with a lot of links.