One more post about Joe Wilson

Because I blogged about it so much back in the day (I'm going to go back tag all relevant posts with Valerie Plame), I'd like to quote some of the Washington Post's conclusion:

It follows that one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House -- that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame's identity to ruin her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson -- is untrue. The partisan clamor that followed the raising of that allegation by Mr. Wilson in the summer of 2003 led to the appointment of a special prosecutor, a costly and prolonged investigation, and the indictment of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on charges of perjury. All of that might have been avoided had Mr. Armitage's identity been known three years ago.

...

Nevertheless, 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.

Permalink | 1 Comment | Tags: Valerie Plame | id 8129

11:44 (utc-5)

 

The Plame thing

Two years later this Plame "scandal" is still going on. It's like the Holloway story... every time I stick my head out to see what the talking heads are talking about, it's still there.

I was writing about how bogus and plainly political this story was, as well as how the media has the emphasis on the story completely backwards two years ago, but people are still talking about it.

After all this time, this post at Power Line serves as a decent update, particularly the last graph by John.

Permalink | 2 Comments | Tags: Valerie Plame | id 7461

02:31 (utc-5)
edited: 02:48 (utc-5)

 

Gloating over the collapse of Joe Wilson's credibility

Glenn Reynolds is gloating, and rightly so, over the discrediting of Joe Wilson.

Roger Simon helps to put the man and his actions in perspective:

... Wilson is no ordinary rat, the likes of which have abounded in virtually every political party since time immemorial. He is a deeply evil human being willing to lie and obfuscate for temporary political gain about a homicidal dictator's search for weapon's grade uranium. Think about that when you walk into your dining room tonight and sit down to dinner with your family. And think about this -- John Kerry, The New York Times, even some bloggers are willing to soft-pedal this. And they call themselves "liberals." Puh-leeze!

What's probably most frustrating about all of this is that the media that trumpeted Joe Wilson's lies at the time are now almost completely silent in trumpeting their own gullibility in being duped. By not announcing their failing as widely as they covered the original "story" the media is complicit in Joe Wilson's lies. Both the original coverage, as well as what now amounts to the cover-UP, are transparently political.

It shouldn't be surprising, I suppose. We know their agenda already (they've told us as much). But the fact that it's not surprising makes it ever more infuriating. The old saying goes "never ascribe to malice what you can ascribe to incompetence". Unfortunately, we know that this is malice. While incompetence can be forgiven if corrections are made, malice is unforgivable (and the corrections aren't being made).

Update: Scott at Wunderkinder has stuff to say. And more that should scare the crap out of anybody, that should remind us of just how important all of this really is. This isn't just politics, this is life and death.

Permalink | 5 Comments | Tags: Valerie Plame | id 5013

15:59 (utc-4)
edited: 22:03 (utc-4)

 

Joe Wilson

I'd just like to point out that I was right about Joe Wilson. Not that it was very hard to figure out. Previous posts here and here.

Update: Glenn Reynolds has more links. Oh, and this from earlier.

Permalink | Comments? | Tags: Valerie Plame | id 5001

12:14 (utc-4)
edited: 21:35 (utc-4)

 

More on the Wilson/Plame scandal

Just like no blood for oil, I hope this is the last time I'll post on the Wilson/Plame "scandal". Reynolds has a post saying that the scandal is bogus because they're both obviously self-serving publicity-hounds. Absolutely Yes, and that's more wood on the fire. I've been arguing that this whole "scandal" is bogus for a while.

Permalink | Comments? | Tags: Valerie Plame | id 4446

14:42 (utc-5)

 

This is despicable

This is despicable

"It keeps getting worse ... scandals in the Bush White House," the ad says. "Now they illegally leaked the identity of an American CIA agent ... all to hide Bush administration deceptions about the war in Iraq."

First of all, this just about totally a non-story. In fact, there's a real story in the Plame/Novak/Wilson affair, but it's not in the leak of Wilson's wife's name. It's why Wilson's own wife, through nepotism, was able to put such an unqualified and rabidly anti-Bush and anti-war person in such an important position regarding our intelligence, and furthermore, why people believed his report when it wasn't based on any real research... This led to the Niger uranium "scandal", which itself was a non-story, since what Bush said in his SOTU speech was accurate, and British intelligence still stands by their intelligence today. AFAIK, the only story which disagreed with the British intelligence report was Wilson's -- a man who's explicitly stated that he wants to take down Bush and Rove.

But what makes this ad even more despicable is that Novak himself has stated clearly that the leak did not come from within the White House. So not only is this ad partisan weaseling, or ordinary spin, it's downright dishonest. They're lying through their teeth in opposition to well established facts.

Here's a pretty good summary of the issue. I'm pretty furious that this story still has legs like a month later, when it had no substance a month ago. Neither did the Niger uranium story. I guess there's a bright side to this. It's that if this is the best anyone can do to try to pin a scandal on George Bush, then we can be pretty confident that there really isn't anything on him.

Permalink | 10 Comments | Tags: Valerie Plame | id 4326

12:40 (utc-4)
edited: 12:48 (utc-4)