I will happily concede both of Roberts’ points, as he (1) is merely outlining a bone of contention regarding *conclusions* but not about the validity of the evidence presented and (2) they don’t obviate what I consider to be the more serious assumptions, made by Wilson, which led to his anonymous and then overt criticisms (please see my blog post “ASS-U-ME” for more info - I feel like I’m taking up too much bandwidth here as it is… ;-). Plame’s part in the affair wouldn’t have been an issue if Novak hadn’t inappropriately and unnecessarily dragged her into the discussion. Novak’s piece, unfortunately, not only overshadowed what I consider to be the real miscommunication that started the controversy, but made it virtually impossible to clear up as well by essentially attacking Wilson personally (through his wife) instead of just outlining why his assumptions were in error. It’s a mystery to me why Novak hasn’t been the focus of the case from the start (maybe he has).

I have read Rockefeller’s comments. As a former intelligence analyst myself, I didn’t find them impressive, let alone persuasive. It’s just too easy to wag fingers when one is armed with 20/20 hindsight, especially in the midst of a politically charged media feeding frenzy. It’s also easy to forget that other intelligence agencies were making similiar judgements about Saddam - partly because Saddam WANTED the world to fear him. IMHO, Rockefeller’s comments were designed to get him off the hook with his consituency and his party. But as you say, I’m biased on a couple of levels. ;-) Maybe that’s the inherent problem with any investigation guided by politicians…

And no, I’m not saying you’re compelled to believe any congressional committee, all I’m saying is that everyone’s BS filter is clogged with their own BS. So second-guessing or ignoring painstakingly generated, published evidence requires assertions with a very significant level of confirmation. For instance, if I thought Plame’s part in this affair really was a significant factor, I would prefer documented memos about Plame’s involvement over comments by Plame’s supervisor, after the fact, especially when that supervisor’s potential conflict of interest is a huge factor.

I have seen Fox be as critical of the Bush administration as anyone. The fact that they question the points other outlets seem to take on faith doesn’t make them a “Republican mouthpiece” IMHO. I believe they have a center-right agenda with respect to what the public sees and hears and how it’s presented, but if I thought such an agenda was inappropriate I probably wouldn’t be reading/posting here much, or posting what I do in my own space.

I honestly don’t believe the conservative viewpoint equals anywhere near the *publicly-consumed* bandwidth enjoyed by the liberal viewpoint. Most harder-core conservative outlets (e.g., talk radio) are preaching to the choir, while the MSM (sans the three you mentioned - out of 100s!) is preaching to the masses. And to be honest no, I have not seen Ken, Newt or King at all - and I’m in the peak (or maybe I should refer to it as a valley) of my bipolar attention to the news media. Guess I’m not part of the choir. :-(

Thanks for your reply!

I wasn’t backing off of my comments at all. I looked at antimedia’s blog, and I felt that he it was misleading to portray himself as a neutral observer. It doesn’t mean I think he’s “lying;” in addition to that being a more charged word than I wanted to use, it implies that I think he is cynically telling an untruth. For all I know, he may honestly feel his portrayal of himself is accurate. However, seeing how relentlessly he parrots the party line on his blog (at least the parts I read - I can’t read every word on every site I visit) I think the way he portrays himself is misleading.

As to the Senate report, I’ve got to stop referring to it because you’re right, it’s a pain in the ass to search. I have read in more than one place that Rockefeller refused to sign off on portions of the report, which is confirmed if you read “Additional Views of Chairman Pat Roberts” on Page 441. Roberts says “Despite our hard and successful work to deliver a unanimous report … there were two issues on which the Republicans and Democrats could not agree: 1) whether the Committee should conclude that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s public statements were not based on knowledge he actually possessed, and 2) whether the Committee should conclude that it was the former ambassador’s wife who recommended him for his trip to Niger.” There’s no mention in Rockefeller’s comments, so I’m guessing it’s mentioned elsewhere, but the whole thing is so heavily redacted it’s tough to get through. Part of the problem with the public’s knowledge of this report is that Susan Schmidt of the Washington Post wrote a story after the report came out headlined “Plame’s Input Is Cited on Niger Mission” without mentioning that the Democrats had refused to sign off on that finding.

Incidentally, Rockefeller’s comments are worth reading.

You said “I take it you understand my hesitation in accepting those assumptions over what was actually published by the people who did the work. Those are what I consider to be the facts.” While that seems noble, in reality what you’re sayig is that I’m compelled to believe any congressional committee, or reporter, or anyone who devotes a lot more time to researching a subject than I do, because they’re the people who “did the work.” In fact, I try to educate myself as much as possible, read critical analyses of different reports, and apply my bullshit filter to determine who I believe and don’t believe. It’s all any of us can do.

On the next point, you’re right, you mentioned the media, not liberals. I’m so used to seeing right wingers use them interchangeably that it was a knee jerk reaction on my part.

Your next point puzzles me. “…the “Republicansâ€Â? (Uhm, which ones, specifically, btw?) are not on the air constantly broadcasting, well, anything, are they?” In addition to Fox News, which I believe to be a Republican mouthpiece, the Washington Times, the Wall Street Journal and a host of right wing radio talkers, the news is full of Republican spokespeople dutifully plumping the party line. Don’t tell me you haven’t seen Ken Mehlman, Newt Gingrich, Peter King and a host of others, repeating the same points nearly word for word.

As for your theory about Wilson/Plame being behind the leaks, I visit so many blogs (to the detriment of my work and family life, I’m afraid) that I lose track. But you’ll definitely find it here- http://wizbangblog.com/ and here- http://www.nationalreview.com/may/may200507150827.asp, and I’ve read that Limbaugh has advanced the theory, as well.

Sorry for going on so long, but I appreciate the opportunity to discuss an honest difference of opinion without a lot of name calling.

“his portrayal of himself as a neutral party is not accurate.”
This sounds a bit like a backpedal to me. He’s either being intentionally misleading or not. You’re saying it’s not intentional? “…more than a little misleading” doesn’t sound like you believe that.

“Republican findings” - which ones were those? Rockefeller’s name is on the report as the Vice Chair. My chance to learn: the report is long and not easily searched. - do you have the page number in the document that contains his disclaimer? I’d like to read that.

“if I say it 3,ooo times it must be true’ strategy. You accuse the liberals of the same thing.”
Funny thing. If you go back and read what I wrote you’ll see that I specifically referred to the media, not “liberals”. Aside from this, you missed my point, which was that where the media creates a non-stop print, video, broadband and audio flood of the same biased innuendo, accusations, claims, mischaracterizations, lies of omission and often un-checked “facts”, the “Republicans” (Uhm, which ones, specifically, btw?) are not on the air constantly broadcasting, well, anything, are they?

“I also freely admit that these are assumptions on my part.”
Thanks. By that I take it you understand my hesitation in accepting those assumptions over what was actually published by the people who did the work. Those are what I consider to be the facts.

“Are you saying that if someone makes a one sentence reply to a question during an interview, we should always expect it to be as clear and articulate as an article that has been written, rewritten and edited?”
No, I probably worded that poorly. Wilson responded verbally to the CIA. He assumed his response was clear. He was wrong - it was not. Neither was his response to Blitzer, or so he now claims.

“this is a theory with absolutely no foundation in any of the facts. I’ve seen this theory gain traction on a lot of right wing blogs”
That’s extremely interesting. I tell you with no sarcasm or levity that I honestly made it up on the spot when I wrote it. I must be reading the wrong right wing blogs. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I really have been away from a lot of the discussion until very recently. Come to think of it, none of the blogs I read are “right wing” as far as I can tell. Where, specifically have you seen this?

“Boy, are you righties going to be sorry”
I know this was only partly serious, but you’re generalizing. Plus you’re in error if you’re referring to me personally. I certainly hold a number of opinions that I suppose are compatible with what is generally (?) considered right-wing ideology. Foremost among those would be complete support for military action in Afghanistan and Iraq, whatever the cost (and I’d love to discuss). I’m also not much in favor of abortion-on-demand, embryonic stem cell research or human cloning but, then again, I see nothing wrong with abortion-as-prescribed, placental stem cell research or jailing animal abusers. I’m not much in favor of free-for-all-enterprise and I used go boycott WalMart but don’t any longer - they carry stuff we like to buy when other stores around here can’t or won’t. I firmly believe the majority party should be doing more to fix our border security problem and doing less to incite moderate muslims by openly discussing mushroom clouds over Mecca, and I believe the minority party should be muzzling people like Dick Durbin so that we don’t lose what’s left of the two-party balance when people like him marginalize the Democrats by using offensive, disrespectful, idiotic hyperbole. I think Social Security is in big trouble, but I don’t believe the average individual necessarily has the smarts to do better in a privatized scenario. And I think my daughter’s two Moms should be able to legally marry if they wish - let them go from individually filing unmarried head of household to shouldering some of the marriage penalty burden ;-) So you see I’m not going to fit any of the standard pigeonholes (”you righties”) people are used to using in this sort of discussion. I prefer people respond to me, rather than responding to the stereotype that they believe I represent.

“So you think antimedia is intentionally lying? Hmmm…”
I’m saying no such thing. What I’m saying is that I feel he’s approaching this with a specific agenda, and that his portrayal of himself as a neutral party is not accurate. There’s so much name calling from both the right and left on discussion blogs that I try my best not to make personal attacks.

“I suggest you write a letter to John Rockefeller and ask him why he has joined the President in misleading the public. It sounds as though you believe he’s lying as well.”
I totally don’t understand this point. Jay Rockefeller refused to sign off on the Republican findings about the Niger trip. Am I missing your point?

“Seriously, I submit to you that anything contradicting the 24/7 drumbeat emanating from most of the media - a sort of exercise in truth-through-repetition, aka “anything I tell you 3,000 times is trueâ€Â? - is going to sound like “the same old Republican spinâ€Â? to you”
This is an interesting element of this particular discussion . If you notice, one of my complaints is that the Republicans rely on the ‘if I say it 3,ooo times it must be true’ strategy. You accuse the liberals of the same thing. Oh, well.

“You don’t like the story it tells and choose to believe whatever contradicts it, without vetting the contradictions using anything near the effort that went into the report itself. Not a very reliable intelligence-gathering technique, IMHO.”
You’re right. From now on I won’t venture an opinion until I’ve held hearings and interviewed hundreds of witnesses, and neither should anyone else. Seriously, I’ve read extensive sections of the report as well as a lot of analysis from both sides, and drawn my own conclusions. Rockefeller sat through the same hearings Pat Roberts did, and refused to sign off on Roberts’ conclusions. I’m also assuming that some of the parts he did sign off on were as much a result of determining where the political winds were blowing and how much influence the minority party could have without being labeled obstructionist. I believe both sides played politics with the report, which is to be expected from any report prepared by both parties. I also freely admit that these are assumptions on my part.

“It also sounds like you think we should believe, on the one hand, that Wilson was clear enough in his report to the CIA to get across what he claimed to have reported in his 7/6/03 NYT piece, but on the other hand, that he couldn’t formulate a clear, simple, one-sentence response to Blitzer about his wife’s status. Hmmm… again. I think it’s pretty obvious he said exactly what he meant, then backpedaled.”
Are you saying that if someone makes a one sentence reply to a question during an interview, we should always expect it to be as clear and articulate as an article that has been written, rewritten and edited? I don’t even think Wilson was that unclear, I was just trying to give a little. The AP ran a correction of their initial story on the interview, BTW, that basically supports my point.

“Of course if he ultimately finds, say, that Wilson is the source Judith Miller is protecting, and that Wilson and Plame conspired to spread disinformation about Niger/Iraq, during wartime, for the purposes of influencing the election, you’ve already made it pretty clear that any conflicting “reportsâ€Â? will be the ones you’ll prefer to believe.”
I’ll wait to see how things shake out before I commit to believing anything. If the evidence shows that Wilson and Plame are the culprits, I won’t like it but I’ll accept it, and I’ll be plenty pissed at them. However, I do want to pooint out that this is a theory with absolutely no foundation in any of the facts. I’ve seen this theory gain traction on a lot of right wing blogs until its discussed as an inevitability, which completely supports my assertion about Republican spin that takes on a life of its own. Simplistic minds on the right can only thing “New York Times - bad” without realizing that although it’s a liberal paper, Judith Miller is no friend of the left. The Times had to publish an apology for its misleading reporting about WMD in the run up to the war, and although they didn’t mention Miller by name, the vast majority of the articles they apologized for were written by her. Are you saying she’s an active participant in a conspiracy designed to make her look like a fool?
I know this “Wilson/Plame did it” theory gets the Right all in a fever thinking about what sweet turnabout it would be. The only flaw is that there is not a shred of evidence (not suppositions, evidence) pointing to it being true. But right wing bloggers spend so much time reinforcing each other on this one that they haven’t bothered to ask each other if it makes any sense.

Look, I can play that game too. “If it turns out that Rove really works for al qaeda, wouldn’t that be sweet? I bet he did. Boy, are you righties going to be sorry when that comes out. Will you admit you’re wrong then? Huh? Huh?”

I have noticed than whenever I post with very specific facts, the responses seem to run along the lines of “you just won’t admit the truth.” Please respond with some facts rebutting my points. Not a “generous analysis,” facts.

So you think antimedia is intentionally lying? Hmmm…

Chris, I suggest you write a letter to John Rockefeller and ask him why he has joined the President in misleading the public. It sounds as though you believe he’s lying as well.

Seriously, I submit to you that anything contradicting the 24/7 drumbeat emanating from most of the media - a sort of exercise in truth-through-repetition, aka “anything I tell you 3,000 times is true” - is going to sound like “the same old Republican spin” to you, especially since you appear to be predisposed to dance to that drumbeat without really questioning it.

There are plenty of us - especially some of us who’ve actually done some intelligence work in past lives - who recognize the truth, confusion and failures clearly outlined in the Senate report. You don’t like the story it tells and choose to believe whatever contradicts it, without vetting the contradictions using anything near the effort that went into the report itself. Not a very reliable intelligence-gathering technique, IMHO.

It also sounds like you think we should believe, on the one hand, that Wilson was clear enough in his report to the CIA to get across what he claimed to have reported in his 7/6/03 NYT piece, but on the other hand, that he couldn’t formulate a clear, simple, one-sentence response to Blitzer about his wife’s status. Hmmm… again. I think it’s pretty obvious he said exactly what he meant, then backpedaled.

A generous analysis suggests that Wilson made a number of arrogant assumptions about the information he provided on Niger: its level of importance, what was assessed and how that assessment was reported. He was wrong in those assumptions. He directly attacked the Bush administration based on those assumptions and when the WH responded with the facts as they knew them, the majority of the media instantly screamed “SMEAR!!!!” instead of considering the possibility that Wilson was spreading disinformation (whether knowingly or not). Instead of simply apologizing, Wilson played the victim and has been doing so ever since. Novak’s outrageous and unnecessary discussion of Plame, in trying to cast doubt and foment more controversy, has almost completely obscured this.

All of this of course is moot at this point. We’ll get the facts when Fitzgerald decides he has all of them. Of course if he ultimately finds, say, that Wilson is the source Judith Miller is protecting, and that Wilson and Plame conspired to spread disinformation about Niger/Iraq, during wartime, for the purposes of influencing the election, you’ve already made it pretty clear that any conflicting “reports” will be the ones you’ll prefer to believe.

I also noticed that you say “Here’s what the Senate Intelligence Committee Report (searchable pdf) had to say about Wilson and his wife.” I think it’s more than a little deceptive that you then quote a section of the report that is in actuality Pat Robert’s comments, in which he laments the fact that the Democrats refuse to sign off on the section of the report dealing with Wilson’s trip to Niger. So what you’re really quoting are Pat Roberts’ partisan comments, not the actual report.

You also mention that Plame’s former supervisor casts doubt on her role as a covert operative. Perhaps it would be more revealing if you pointed out that this supervisor retired from the CIA in 1990. I imagine he still has contacts in the agency, but any knowledge he would have about her activities in the 90s is strictly second hand.

Another point. Wilson clearly did not tell Wolf Blitzer that his wife was not a covert operative before Novak wrote about her. His point was that her life as a covert operative ended the day Novak outed her. He may have been less than precise in his wording, but has emphatically clarified since what he meant. I would think a truthteller such as yourself would at least acknowledge that.

Also, a careful reading of the Senate Intelligence Committee report will show that the testimony that Plame arranged for Wilson to go to Niger came from a Stae Department analyst at the meeting, who was making an assumption about what had transpired before he came on the scene. Her superior has been quoted as saying that it simply wasn’t true, and that he couldn’t understand why the committee didn’t ask him.

Finally, a point that very few people seem to raise is about your vaunted Senate Intelligence Committee report. The Democratic opinion section of the report clearly states that there is a need to investigate the pressure that the intelligence agencies faced to produce intel that supported the administration position. There are credible reports that the reason Chaney never saw Wilson’s report is because it didn’t support the administration line, so no one wanted to send it to him. Sen. Roberts insisted that the report only focus on the intelligence gathering process, and that a susequent report would deal with how the intelligence agencies were pressured. Just a couple of months ago, when asked about the second report, Roberts replied that the time had passed for that, and it wouldn’t be looked into. So the Senate report isn’t quite the Bible you make it out to be.

I could go on, but this is a perfect example of why the Administration tactics succeed. I’ve wasted a lot of electrons just rebutting a few of the falsehoods that are intentionally being spewed out by the administration. They know if they keep obfuscating, the environment gets so thick that truth and falsehood become part of one big stew that no one can unravel. Not even truthtellers like yourself.

By the way, I don’t mean to make this sound like a personal attack, but I thought your portrayal of yourself as an honest broker who only wants the truth was more than a little misleading.

Thanks for your feedback …

As to the “In fact, when Novak contacted him and told him what he had on the story, Rove’s only comment was, “I heard that too.â€Â? …

The story that appeared in the NYT yesterday morning, quoting an unamed source (”someone who has been officially briefed on the matter said Thursday”) …

Perhaps this source is accurate …

To me, it sounds like something Rove would say … Spinning his own spin …

After all, early in his career, he did bug his own candidate office, blaming the opposition, the day before the election …

Peace
JTD

In all the heated mudslinging, what is being lost (which, after all, is the goal of the Bush people, RNC, et all) is that someone in the administration leaked the information …

We now know this is not true.

According to the Associated Press, Rove testified under oath before the Grand Jury that he learned about Plame from reporters, not the other way around. In fact, when Novak contacted him and told him what he had on the story, Rove’s only comment was, “I heard that too.”

Not exactly an administration leak, is it?

In leaking the information (and for political retribution), the leaker has put in jeapordy anyone connected to Mrs. Wilson covert operation - that’s not hype, that’s fact … It has been reported that she had a successful cover operation that took 3-or-4-years to establish … And there’s a domino effect, not just for the operation and the CIA, but other nation’s agency that may have had operatives involved in some fashion …

We now also know that this is not true.

Plame was under official cover and then a NOC in the 1990’s. Wilson recently admitted to Wolf Blitzer that his wife was not a covert agent when Novak published his article.

In Wilson’s book, he writes that he and Plame were married in 1997 and have resided in Washington, D.C. ever since. So the likelihood is (although Wilson refused to confirm it to Blitzer) that his wife had not been a covert agent since 1997.

Her own (CIA) (former) boss stated that, once she married Wilson, it would have been extremely difficult to maintain her cover. He also stated that she was never a deep cover agent.

All these are facts that can be easily obtained if one avoids the heated rhetoric and searches for the truth.

And just so you know, I am not a Republican. Never have been. I’m not the member of any political party, although I did pay dues once to the Libertarian Party. (Then I read their literature in depth and left in disgust.)

I don’t write about this stuff for partisan reasons. I think the truth is much more important than silly political turf wars. As Americans, we have to decide all the time who can best represent us. To do that, we have to know the truth - not what the politicians tell us and not what the biased media tells us. Both lie to us constantly. It’s up to us to sort out the truth.

Fantastic stuff coming up here, regardless of ’side.’ Great job, folks - and kudos to Justin G. for his work setting this up.

Usually the person you have in mind is your editor. He won’t let you run your story about the county commissioners planning to sell the old farts in the senior home for rendering into cat food, because your only source for that is the janitor in the cat food cannery.

So you call the county commissioner, and he says “I can’t comment on that.”

There are ways around this. One dear little old lady I worked with used to say, at that point, “If you did have a comment, what would it be?” And half the time the source started talking. I swear to God, they were that dense.

Another reporter used to harrange them with, “If I print this tomorrow, would I be wrong?” That is gray. The person on the other end of the phone can say, “no,” and, while not confirming it, confirms it.

It’s a big, elaborate, unpleasant chapter in the insiders’ book of journalism. Here’s one I used to use when I was a cop reporter in the ’80s. There’s been a shooting. You think it was a fatal shooting (a dead body pushes the story out to page 1). But the cops won’t tell you anything.

So you call the hospital, where the victim likely was taken. Now, the nursing shift supervisor isn’t supposed to tell you anything important. There are rules about that. But if you ask her, “what was the time of death of that shooting victim from up on Price Street?” that’s the kind of routine detail she can release, and there’s a chance she’ll give it to you.

Bingo, confirmation.

Or, if I knew we had a victim but the police wouldn’t release the name, I might call someone who worked on the case and ask, “that guy who got killed on Price Street? How do you spell his name?” Act like I had the name and just wanted to get it spelled right.

Of course, if his name is “Smith” or he’s not really dead, you can look like a snake and an idiot. But nobody ever insulted a journalist by calling him a snake and an idiot.

You’re correct about Chris Matthews being the supposed source of the “fair game” quote. My apologies for misattributing that to Andrea Mitchell. Don’t know what I was thinking of there. However, a “source” said Rove *did* deny that he ever said it and quoted him as having said that it “was reasonable to discuss who sent Wilson to Niger”. Furthermore, no one has been able to corroborate Matthews’ statement. Matthews said he would “not discuss an off the record” conversation, and the source of the “fair game” quote is someone “close” to Wilson, which, given his manifest other lies, is at least suspect. (Personally, I wouldn’t believe the man if he said the sun was shining without looking outside first.)

I’m amazed that you think it’s not in the media’s best interest to lie. Of course it isn’t, but that doesn’t stop them for one minute from doing it. I have many, many documented lies on my blog. They lie so routinely that they don’t even see them until someone points them out.

And you’re wrong about the “fair game” canard. Chris Matthews called Wilson up and told him RIGHT after Rove called Mathews and told him that Plame was “fair game.” Matthews has confirmed this on numerous occasions.

From the Wash Post:

Rove told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that Wilson’s wife was “fair game,” according to an October 2003 report in Newsweek. At a minimum Fitzgerald could turn up embarrassing information that may yet become public about how the Bush White House operates.

Lastly, it’s not in the press’ best interest to lie. And it would be quite a conspiracy indeed for the ENTIRE press corps to be reporting the same “lies” and uncovering new “lies” as days go by. Please, enough with the ad hominems.

In all the heated mudslinging, what is being lost (which, after all, is the goal of the Bush people, RNC, et all) is that someone in the administration leaked the information …

From the fullscale assault on Joe Wilson yesterday from the Repubs, doth think they protest too much … There were nearly hourly updates (interrupted only by the half-hour updates on the definitive, today-is-the-day resignation of Rehnquist) on just what went down between Rove and Cooper … The defenders of Rove stopped short of saying that Rove helps old ladies cross the street …

In leaking the information (and for political retribution), the leaker has put in jeapordy anyone connected to Mrs. Wilson covert operation - that’s not hype, that’s fact … It has been reported that she had a successful cover operation that took 3-or-4-years to establish … And there’s a domino effect, not just for the operation and the CIA, but other nation’s agency that may have had operatives involved in some fashion …

Not intedend to say I defend the CIA and their operations, however, the politicians involved may think of this as a game and they go home at the end of the day, their world intact … For the CIA, that’s not the case, and, in particular, for the agents in the field and those involved in such covert operations …

Peace
JTD

Secondly, Wilson is lying about the results of his investigation. He HIMSELF reported that the Nigerian Finance Minister stated that an Iraqi delegation approached him 1999 about “doing business” with Niger, and the minister took that to mean that they were interested in purchasing yellowcake uranium because he was sure they didn’t want goats, which was Niger’s only other export.

Thirdly, Wilson is lying when he says, “Three, my trip out to Niger took place eight months before I ever spoke out on the Iraq war.” He wrote against the war well before then. His arguments are classic anti-war and predate his trip to Niger.

Finally, the canard that Rove ever said Wilson’s wife was “fair game” is just that - a canard. It was asserted by ONE reporter, Andrea Mitchell, who claims Rove said it to her. Rove denied it at the time. Furthermore, the NY Times, just yesterday, revealed that Rove found out about Plame “from reporters”, and, when Novak discussed the story with him (Novak providing all the details and Rove merely listening), all Rove said was, “Oh, you know abou it.”

The press has lied about this story from the beginning and is still covering up the truth.

Does having a covert political agenda make you a partisan hack? I would say Joe Wilson did, when he all but called Bush a liar for the claim Bush made in the ‘03 State of the Union address. Wilson’s shabby work in Niger and blatant self-promotion needn’t be a product of partisanism. That could just be personality.

Lord Frederick Butler’s report, or, properly, “Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction,” lays out the findings on Niger uranium:

45. From our examination of the intelligence and other material on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa, we have concluded that:

a. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999.

b. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible.

c. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually purchased, as opposed to having sought, uranium and the British Government did not claim this.

d. The forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it. (Paragraph 503)

The Bush administration typically managed to flub the case by holding up the one Niger allegation that was a fake.

The Wilsons, after the Iraq War began if not before, were more interested in undermining the war than they were in determining the truth. If you think the war is a crime against humanity, of course, that qualifies them as your heroes.

Well, when he served as ambassador to Gabon, we had good relations with that country. At least, we think we did. So far as anybody knows.

I don’t think much of his investigative work in Niger, though. When he came back he didn’t write a report - not even a memo - and his oral debriefing seems to have raised more suspicions than it settled. Furthermore, his conclusions look more wrong all the time.

You have Wilson’s responses to the charge that he’s a liar, and people can take those answers or leave them. In my opinion, though, admirable members of the diplomatic corps don’t make egomanical public spectacles out of themselves, they don’t complain about character assassination while vigorously engaging in it themselves, and they don’t denounce Justice Dept. investigations as cover-ups.

Look, I’m not a fan of a whole lot of people in Washington, but if you told me Newt Gingrich was a hack just because he backed George Bush for President I’d say the same thing: our brothers in arms have died to give him the right to freely speak his mind…suggesting someone is a hack just because he sees fit to air his beliefs is a chep shot at best, and downright Un-American in my opinion.