Patterico's Pontifications

10/26/2007

Anyone else notice the curious “thud” with which Valerie Plame’s book arrived?

Filed under: General — WLS @ 5:28 pm



Posted by WLS:

Frankly, I didn’t even know it was scheduled for release until I saw the tease for the 60 Minutes interview. 

But, the attention it has gotten this week has been …. well, I’m still waiting.

They got Katie Couric on Sunday, and I saw she was on Hardball last night — wow, that was hard to predict. 

I’m reluctant to give her any un-warranted exposure, but my beef with msnbc Hardball last night — I didn’t watch it, I just read the transcript today — is Christy’s continuing trouble with the English alphabet.  He’s continuing to get his “s” and “b” mixed up.  I know they don’t look alike or sound alike, but he seems to substitute one for the other continually.   Here’ s the problem — one on which he has been corrected on time and again without any apparent impact.

In the State of the Union Speech in Jan. 2003, the President said:

“The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently Sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

 Now, Christy goes on a blistering examination of Plame which includes the following questions:

“MATTHEWS:  There were two points made in the build-up to war about the nuclear weapons, the aluminum tubes and the trip to Niger, buying the yellowcake from Niger, the uranium material.  Did you know at the time that the president was making the claims about that in his State of the Union that those claims weren‘t true?

“MATTHEWS:  You heard from the vice president‘s office that the vice president wanted to know if there was, in fact, a deal by Saddam Hussein to buy uranium yellowcake from the government of Niger….  You know that that was checked out by your [husband].  Ultimately, he went to Niger, and he reported back there was no evidence of that deal, right? 

MATTHEWS:  And then you heard the vice president and the president attest that we faced a threat from nuclear weaponry in the hands of Saddam Hussein, based upon this African deal.  What did you think then?

MATTHEWS:  When your husband filed the story with “The New York Times” attesting the fact that he‘d gone on that trip to Niger and he‘d come back with nothing, that there wasn‘t evidence of a deal, he must have known, didn‘t he, he was going to light a match that would lead all the way to you, the fuse was just lit, they were coming to you?  Did you think that he wasn‘t going to—that match wasn‘t going to be lit?

I think Christy needs “Hooked On Phonics” as a Christmas gift this year, so he can practice distinguishing between “Sought” and “Bought”. 

14 Responses to “Anyone else notice the curious “thud” with which Valerie Plame’s book arrived?”

  1. WLS – The book is supposed to be based on a true story isn’t it? From the interviews I’ve seen and reviews I’ve read, it sure seems to leave a lot of the actual story out. Convenient that. I wonder if it will be classified as fiction.

    daleyrocks (906622)

  2. Plame’s fifteen minutes of fame seems to have expired long ago.

    Paul (66339f)

  3. Actually, there are two dishonesties here, WLS. One is the “sought” versus “bought” conflation as you pointed out. The other is that Bush was only speaking about Niger in his State of the Union address:

    The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

    In fact, the British intelligence report which Bush cited specifically pointed the finger at two African countries: Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

    To the best of my knowledge, Wilson and his defenders have never challenged the assertion that Saddam sought yellowcake uranium from the DR of Congo. If even they have never attempted to debunk this allegation, then I assume all sides are in agreement: Saddam sought yellowcake from the DR of Congo, an African nation. Therefore, Bush’s sixteen words are correct.

    DubiousD (1c483b)

  4. It’s like talking to a wall when it comes to Valerie Plame and the media. This New York Times’ book review seems like a rehash of every liberal talking point, regardless of what actual investigations revealed. The only thing I learned was that the Wilsons have a turbulent marriage and they’ve moved to New Mexico. I assume they live in Santa Fe or elsewhere in Northern New Mexico and that they aren’t neighbors of the Rumsfelds further south, but it would be ironic indeed if they ended up as neighbors.

    DRJ (207a4b)

  5. Chris Mathews, like all good Libs, never lets a little slip of the tongue get in the way of an agenda.

    Another Drew (8018ee)

  6. From their privileged positions, Valeria and her lying husband attempted to overthrow the American government and all she got was a book deal, cushy retirement package and life time health care instead of a few decades in the slammer.

    Perfect Sense (b6ec8c)

  7. She has also been interviewed at FiredogLake and is posting at HuffPo and keeps dancing around without saying any thing important. Mostly I see a lot of careful wordsmithing on her part trying to spin the impression that there is more there than is there. A verbal smokescreen.

    On a related slant, it has never been revealed where Lybia got all their junk from, but the clear evidence is that SOMEBODY had to be hawking hundreds of tons of the stuff from somewhere, it sure wasn’t home grown.

    daytrader (ea6549)

  8. Plame claims for the 100th time that she was deliberately outed by the Bush administration in retaliation for her smart husband 100% debunking the President’s justification for the Iraq war.

    The tedious word semantics that CIA top secret agent couple plays were old a year ago. Now they are super stale.

    Something somewhat fresh is Valerie Plame claiming that it is impossible for her top secret CIA smart husband (photographed with her in the convertible in Vanity Fair) … to find a luxurious hotel junket in Niger, because Niger is such a dump.

    Enough already.

    Wesson (fd354d)

  9. I got that the (CIA_Plame)deal was the doctor in Iraq who worked in the lab that developed all this and was freed by the Iraqi courts the day Plame posed in ‘Time.’ Saddam was hung real fast. He couldn’t testify.

    Plame leaked the trucks and Syria. Most intelligence agencies were waiting for that because it was confusing as far as why Rice responded strongly when there was no WMD known(except for the lab and doctor and CIA and Plame)

    Gnis (f7be2a)

  10. well, considering theres only 3 people in the world who are buying wilson’s story these days, matthews & the wilsons, its not surprising theres a THUD

    james conrad (7cd809)

  11. The only thing I learned was that the Wilsons have a turbulent marriage . . .

    She’s wife number 3. She’s got to see the writing on the wall.

    dave (e548e6)

  12. There wasnt exactly big lines or people waiting to get a copy of BILL CLINTONS book MY LIFE or MY LIES Its the same when all liberal wussietards write a book no big crowds and RICHARD DAWKINS is a igoramus muttonheaded idiot

    krazy kagu (e778bf)

  13. Anyone notice that the Syrian reactor that just got taken out was built on her watch at the CIA as honcho sorta of WMD proliferation.

    Heck of a job Val.

    daytrader (ea6549)

  14. dave – Scary Larry Johnson will always be there for her if things get tough with Broadway Joe Wilson.

    daleyrocks (906622)


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