Ever Think You Would Miss Ari Fleischer?

I sure didn't.  But the man who deftly deflected criticism of even the President's most misguided policies during President Bush's first term seems to have dealt a crushing blow to the Scooter Libby defense team:

Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary, recounted to a jury on Monday his experience at an unusual lunch on July 7, 2003, during which he said that I. Lewis Libby Jr. passed on detailed information about the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency operative.

The lunch in the White House mess for senior staff took place three days before the date that Mr. Libby had sworn he first learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from reporters.

Mr. Fleischer was the fifth prosecution witness to provide damaging testimony in the form of an account that conflicted with the version Mr. Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, told a grand jury and investigators.

Mr. Fleischer’s day on the stand provided a riveting moment because of the detailed description of the conversation, which he said occurred in his last week at the White House and was the only time Mr. Libby had ever asked him to lunch.

Mr. Fleischer said that after casual talk about his new career and the fact that he and Mr. Libby were both fans of the Miami Dolphins, the conversation turned to the controversy then swirling around whether President Bush had used false information in his State of the Union address about Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium in Africa.

The day before the lunch, Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador, had written an Op-Ed article in The New York Times that said he had taken a trip to Niger at the behest of Mr. Cheney’s office and had determined there was no truth to the assertion in the State of the Union speech that Saddam Hussein had recently tried to buy uranium ore in Africa.

“Ambassador Wilson was sent by his wife,” Mr. Fleischer testified that Mr. Libby told him, disputing the notion that he had been sent by Mr. Cheney. “His wife works for the C.I.A.”

Mr. Fleischer also said that Mr. Libby used the woman’s maiden name, Valerie Plame, and that she worked at the agency’s bureau that dealt with efforts to curtail the proliferation of weapons.

“He said it was hush-hush, on the Q.T. and that most people didn’t know it,” Mr. Fleischer testified.

Analysis from PoliticsTV:

And more on the return of Ari Fleischer from Dana Milbank.