[Her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV] 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.That goes way beyond simply saying the Plame affair is over, doesn't it? There's an immense amount of blogger commentary on this editorial, of course. Links collected here.
September 1, 2006
"The person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson."
Says The Washington Post in an editorial today:
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18 comments:
Hey! Whaddya know? Some exculpatory evidence for the Bush administration! How many unresolved scandals does that leave?
The Post is right, of course. We definitely should have known better than to suspect them of shady dealings, especially regarding Iraq War intelligence.
I know, I know. This is big for you people and I shouldn't scoff. But just step back and consider what passes for "good news" these days.
The truth is always good news. Unfortunately it is something we rarely get from the NYT and the rest of the MSM.
The problem is Doyle, that a good number of the so-called "unresolved scandels" came about the same way as Plame Gate.
Thanks, doyle. That must have been painful. How about owning up to all the other idiocies perpetrated by BDS types?
I'm working on a full-length apology on behalf of everyone who ever had anything negative to say about this administration. It's going to take some time, you understand.
While I applaud the WaPo's relative honesty in fess'ing up to the fact that Wilson lied, etc, etc. I wish that they would also be more forthright over the abysmal performance of the MSM in the whole sorted affair. In summary:
1. The press knew from the beginning that Wilson was spreading tall tales and that his wife was not very covert.
2. The press selectively wanted this "bad" leak vigorously investigated by an independent prosecutor, cause the Bush Admin couldn't be trusted to get to the bottom of this serious threat to national security.
3. From the beginning, the press and particularly the WaPo knew who had done the leaking, because they had been the recipients of those leaks. Hypocritically they wanted the prosecutor to bring in front of the GJ the Admin officials to uncover what the press already knew.
4. The press seemed astonished that the press might be implicated in the leak and asked to testify. The public and GJ all of a sudden didn't have the right to know what the press knew.
5. Somewhat later, there were other leaks, good leaks this time that hurt national security, but because this time, the leaks were from administration critics, those should NOT be investigated, because once again, the public had the right to know.
rank hypocrisy.
Does this mean that Fitzmas has been cancelled this year on Daily Kos and there will be no more stupid "12 Days of Fitzmas" poems from liberals?
nsc, I hope you recognize the inherent contradiction in your remark
After many months of turmoil, the WaPo concedes, "The person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson."
The Kos Kidz will never believe this. Their thought process begins with the assumption that Bush, Cheney, and Rove are responsible for all the evils of the universe. Any theory is valid if it supports that conclusion, no matter how unlikely or contradicted by actual evidence.
Although the media balloon has been punctured, Fitzmas won't be cancelled -- it's a faith-based celebration.
Now that the WAPO admits Wilson is scum, can we now increase to two for the true number of verified top-level advisers/ scum who worked for Kerry's campaign? That would be Sandy Berger and Joe Wilson IV.
And I applaud the WAPO for writing the editorial.
To be a real comedian, letterman ought to include this in his monologue. Bet nobody laughs, but I`d get it.
So why haven't they brought Walter Pincus out to slap around? I'd feel better if they held their own employees to standards. Until then consider the editorial a rogue action.
Ann wrote:
There's an immense amount of blogger commentary on this editorial
Of course, the really big gun on this one, other than Daily Kos, was the Huffington Post, which strangely, with its listing of over 100 anti-Bush blogrollers on the site, can only now seem to write 2 postings this week about the Plame affair - and one of those two is from David Corn himself, the author that just outed Armitage!I'm especially looking for the twisted spinmaster, Lawrence O'Donnell, who wrote a post last year (07/02/2005. Huffington Post) titled "It's Rove ..."
Doyle, Arrianna, Bill Keller, et al:
Write 100 times: "I was WRONG".
Good grief:
Though Bush cited WMD as a reason for going into Iraq, it wasn't the ONLY reason. But when you tell the liberal anti-Iraq War types that, they insist on hearing Bush say "I was wrong" about WMD. Barak Obama was quoted as telling Bush to admit he "was wrong". So did Archbishop Tutu, and many left-wing pundits. OK, fair enough. Now its your turn.
This is just like the Duke lacrosse case with liberals. That case is falling apart faster than a sweater from The GAP, but when it is finally dropped, will you hear any media accusers say "I was wrong"?
Now, as human beings,obviously, my politically conservative friends aren't more perfect or better than my liberal friends or their liberal media mavens. But, when shown the facts or even a completely different outcome than predicted, my experience is that the conservatives are far more likely than the liberals to admit "I had that wrong".
What is it about liberals wanting to make others admit wrong, but not themselves?
Character issue?
It can't be a character issue. Liberals don't have those.
Some one call Bill Keller and tell him that Justice Frankfurter once said, "Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late." Henslee v. Union Planters Bank and Trust Co.., 335 U.S., 595, 600 (1949).
Brent, the nearest I can figure-it's like old Saturday morning cartoons. If you run off a cliff--you never actually fall into the ravine unless you look down.
The same is true for debating. As long as you never admit you're wrong, you're never actually wrong.
See-when you get into the debate-it's taken as a given that the other side is bad and conceding they're right occasionally merely shows weakness. The point of arguing isn't to get to the truth of the matter (we already know that), the goal is to berate the other side into not disagreeing with you anymore.
When you get into something like this, the best way to handle it is:
don't make it your goal to actually get the other side to admit they're wrong. I do think it's possible, but not common. Once someone who's like this encounters actual criticism of their arguments, they're less of a raving lunatic (so on an universal/metaphysical level, you're helping the tone of the debate). But, more importantly, you can make it patently obvious to anyone neutral reading that the other side is hopelessly biased (by not admitting anywhere where they're wrong) or just drive them nuts by not going silent when they're trying to berate you. That's your goal. That's the beauty of the internet: it's impossible to shout someone down. Stay calm, provide links, attack your own arguments first, and you'll wind up with someone who's angry you're allowed to breathe, but you'll get a useful debate out of it.
ChrisO:
A pleasure to hear your inane rantings again.
Nice try - but no one here cares a whit about the Washington Post's view, except that it IS surprising that a very liberal paper like the Post would take this position on the Wilson's.
All that thinking people of all stripes do care about is the incredible waste of time, money, serious media attention, and reputations perpetrated on America by people that should have known better.
The "Plamegate" case is over. Anti-Bush, anti-Cheney, anti-Rove,et al types lost this one.
Don't worry, though, you will live again to fight another day! There will still be many heads of mush that you can confuse by the favored Daily Kos Kids method: *"selective-choice-of-factoid-dumping".
*Note to new Althouse readers: that means only choosing partial facts and statistics that may possibly bolster your logically and/or morally indefensible position(s).
Also known as "muddying the water".
Usually accompanied by complete lack of concern for getting to the truth in a matter, especially if it might contradict pre-established beliefs. See also "Agenda driven ends justify the means".
ChrisO,
The Post's editorial is only the lead of this posting because everyone knows how unusual it is for such a liberal paper as the Washington Post to actually see straight when it comes to the President. But that's all it is - interesting because its unusual. The facts are what they are: the Wilsons are excreble excuses for Americans, and Fitzgerald, among others, has ruined his reputation in history by his lack of courage in calling the whole thing off after he knew all of the answers. Well, he did call the whole thing off, but only after a reporter was jailed, numerous innocent people were subjected to unnecessary slander and expense and all for a result of ..... 0.
Libby is a side note to this case AND an error in judgement on the part of Fitzgerald. It is a complete waste of time, and not one person, and that would include you ChrisO, believes that this is an honest result of what was originally desired by liberals such as yourself - which was to make a show of treason on the part of someone close to the President.
Well, well, that didn't happen. Libby ain't bein' tried for treason, and when you and other liberals try to muddy the water by adding him to a "just say anything cause stupid people will think it adds up" list of Bush problems, you deserve the future yawns and glassy-eyed stares you will get.
No twist of words or reimagining of the original liberal hopes and statements over Plamegate will change that fact. Now that its obvious to the world that the liberals' cries were wrong, wrong, wrong, you and your world-view comrades are changing what the liberal standard was when Plamegate began in order to save face now. No liberal looked for just a perjury charge, especially one on who told Libby what, not on who HE told. No, you guys wanted Bush or Cheney to be directly exposed and publicly shamed.
Again - ain't goin' to happen.
Since you are so quick to find reassurance in the Libby perjury charge, I look forward to hearing how much you rejoiced in the hope of President Clinton being convicted during impeachment over his lying (article one in his impeachment).
Because, of course, you've never been called a "hypocrite" now, ChrisO, have you . . .
If you want to state the truth of what happened, do so. But your toss-out of indiscriminate and unconnected "facts" (WMD's . . . please!)in order to confuse people about an issue that really cares about anymore*, is not just a form of dishonesty in communication, it's despicable.
* You'll notice how Plamegate has become a yawner even at Huffington Post and Daily Kos. They couldn't stop talkin' about it over the last 18 months, and now, when their case goes away . . . Where is that famous liberal integrity?
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