I’ve been trying to ignore this totally inconsequential story for quite some time, but maybe now that the Washington Post has signed off, it will finally go away: End of an Affair. Sheer partisan idiocy, taken to an utterly absurd conclusion.

It now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame’s CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming — falsely, as it turned out — that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush’s closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It’s unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.

And among that list of people who took him seriously are the editors of the Washington Post. Why? Because they desperately wanted it to be true.

Allahpundit thinks there’s a vicious nutroots backlash brewing.