L.A. Times Ends News Blackout on Joe Wilson’s Lack of Credibility — Details on Page A6
After a series of Page One articles trumpeting allegations by Joe Wilson against the Bush Administration (for details see this post), the Los Angeles Times has finally mentioned that the recent Senate Intelligence Committee report concludes that Wilson is a liar. But the story, which took the paper almost a week to run, appears on page A6, and does not cite the most compelling evidence that Wilson lied. (Although there is a front-page story about the Butler report, that story doesn’t mention Niger at all.) Incredibly, the Page One space today is reserved for more important stories, like this one about Harrah’s buying Caesar’s.
The revelations about Wilson come at the tail end of the page A6 story about Iraq efforts to buy Niger uranium, and are inordinately defensive of Wilson:
The Senate committee report questioned Wilson’s account on several issues. Wilson has maintained that his wife did not suggest him for the mission to Niger, but the committee found that she did, noting that another CIA official said Plame had “offered up his name.”
“That’s just false,” Wilson said in a telephone interview Wednesday. He said he was preparing a written rebuttal to the Senate report.
A senior intelligence official said the CIA supports Wilson’s version: “Her bosses say she did not initiate the idea of her husband going…. They asked her if he’d be willing to go, and she said yes,” the official said.
The Senate report also accused Wilson of exaggerating his knowledge of forged documents that purported to be evidence of an Iraqi purchase of uranium. Wilson acknowledged that he might have “misspoken” on that issue.
The committee found that intelligence analysts recalled Wilson’s report on his mission to Niger as ambiguous and unimpressive, not as the conclusive refutation he has sometimes described.
Reading this, you’d never know how definitively Wilson denied the involvement of his wife, or how strong the evidence is that she was involved. As the Washington Post reported — the day after the Senate report came out:
Wilson has asserted that his wife was not involved in the decision to send him to Niger.
“Valerie had nothing to do with the matter,” Wilson wrote in a memoir published this year. “She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip.”
Yet, as the Post also reported, her involvement in the decision is documented:
The report states that a CIA official told the Senate committee that Plame “offered up” Wilson’s name for the Niger trip, then on Feb. 12, 2002, sent a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations saying her husband “has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.” The next day, the operations official cabled an overseas officer seeking concurrence with the idea of sending Wilson, the report said.
That is a more complete and accurate portrayal of the evidence that Wilson lied on this issue.
Not only does the Times play down the extent of the evidence against Wilson, it also stuffs the revelations inside section A. It’s inexcusable how long it took the L.A. Times to get around to printing this, and it’s unfair to Bush that it’s placed on page A6 — given the front-page prominence of the numerous previous stories on the issue.
What would have been fair? A front-page story saying that, according to the Butler report, the “sixteen words” in President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address were “well-founded” — and adding that, according to the Senate report, numerous claims made by the principal accuser of Bush on that issue, Joseph Wilson, have been refuted by documentary and testimonial evidence.
At best, today’s story provides curious Times readers a starting point for their research. It doesn’t give them the whole story.
UPDATE: Thanks to Instapundit, Cori Dauber, and Captain Ed for the links. I hope new readers will bookmark the site and return in the future.
Also, this item is cross-posted at “Oh, That Liberal Media”, a group blog to which I contribute. I encourage anyone who hasn’t visited that site to take a look.
UPDATE x2: For anyone doubting that Wilson made the blanket statements about his wife as detailed in the Washington Post article, here is a link to Chapter 17 of his book, via Lawrence in the comments. A quote highlighted by Lawrence makes it pretty dang clear:
Quite apart from the matter of her employment, the assertion that Valerie had played any substantive role in the decision to ask me to go to Niger was false on the face of it. Anyone who knows anything about the government bureaucracy knows that public servants go to great lengths to avoid nepotism or any appearance of it. Family members are expressly forbidden from accepting employment that places them in any direct professional relationship, even once or twice removed. Absurd as these lengths may seem, a supervisor literally cannot even supervise the supervisor of the supervisor of another family member without high-level approval. Valerie could not have stood in the chain of command had she tried to. Dick Cheney might be able to find a way to appoint one of his daughters to a key decision-making position in the State Department’s Middle East Bureau, as he did; but Valerie could not—and would not if she could—have had anything to do with the CIA decision to ask me to travel to Niamey [the location of the U.S. Embassy in Niger].
The sound you hear is the sound of that claim going up in smoke.
Sometimes I kept on wondering why I still have subscription to LA Times… And then I realized that they still have a pretty good Sports section…
Comment by BigFire — 7/15/2004 @ 7:40 am
IT’S ANOTHER LA TIMES
whitewash….
Trackback by PRESTOPUNDIT -- "must readings" says Nick Schutz — 7/15/2004 @ 9:08 am
If they’d start lying about who won last year’s Superbowl or World Series, maybe then readers might start to care.
Comment by Xrlq — 7/15/2004 @ 10:37 am
Actually, The Washington Post’s quote from Wilson’s memoir is partial and unfair. Here’s what Wilson wrote on page 5 of his book:
“Apart from being the conduit of a message from a colleague in her office asking if I would be willing to have a conversation about Niger’s uranium industry, Valerie had nothing to do with the matter. Though she worked on weapons of mass destruction issues, she was not at the meeting I attended where the subject of Niger’s uranium was discussed, when the possibility of my actually traveling to the country was broached. She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip.”
Obviously there is still a dispute over whether Plame proposed Wilson’s name or not. But Wilson never said his wife had nothing to do with the trip at all.
Comment by Ulysses — 7/15/2004 @ 10:59 am
As Bob Novak points out today,
So there’s evidence it was her idea. Not exactly what Wilson said.
Comment by Patterico — 7/15/2004 @ 11:04 am
Ulysses wrote:
Wilson never said his wife had nothing to do with the trip at all.
As documented above, Wilson himself, OTOH, wrote (in his book):
“Valerie had nothing to do with the matter.”
As for the meeting, she convened it and left 3 minutes later. Wilson’s saying she wasn’t there is one of those Clintonian dodges - since, no doubt, she was gone before the meeting actually, formally began. But it’s no less a lie.
Comment by Dodd — 7/15/2004 @ 11:42 am
NRO: The Wilson Plague On All Their Houses
Now that the the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on pre-war intelligence and the UK’s corresponding Butler report both point to the uncomfortable conclusion that Joe “Restore Honesty” Wilson lied about his wife snagging him the Ni…
Trackback by Captain's Quarters — 7/15/2004 @ 1:31 pm
The worst thing about this is how utterly impossible it is to defeat the “Bush lied” argument at this point. So many other feelings an opinions are based on this that people have too much credibility invested in the idea. People might argue about which cards go where in the “I don’t trust Bush” house they’ve built, but they’ve put in too much time to let you jerk the table out from under it. It’s just not possible to argue it anymore.
“Bush is a liar!”
“Oh, why do you say that”
“You know, the uranium from Niger bull he tried to sell us.”
“No, he actually was right about the ‘16 words’. Wilson was a liar.”
“What?”
“Yeah, here look at this [link link link]”
“Ok, well, yeah, but I still don’t trust Bush!”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, what about the imminent threat claim!”
“Well, he never said that. In fact he said the opposite… that we should act BEFORE the threat was imminent.”
“Oh. Well, he’s still a liar. I dont’ trust him.”
It’s hopeless… once stuff like this gets enshrined by NBC as truth they’ll never climb down from it. Whichever TV anchor flinches first loses half his audience… if you worked there, would *you* want to be the one that made NBC/ABC/CBS the #5 source for news this election season?
OK bad question. If you were a dishonest newsman who cared more about appearing right as opposed to *being* right, would you then?
Comment by Tony — 7/15/2004 @ 1:51 pm
Tony
You’ve nailed it! These folks have made up their minds, the facts are irrelevant. Have you had the experience of refuting these points with someone only to have them bring the same points up again a couple of days later? It is hopeless, and frustrating, and depressing.
Comment by Jack Okie — 7/15/2004 @ 2:18 pm
The LAT gets one very wrong
The full story…UP
Trackback by Croooow Blog — 7/15/2004 @ 2:25 pm
SPINNING, SPINNING, ALWAYS SPINNING . . .
Having met Kevin Drum, I certainly won’t call him “dense” (he’s far from it), but he continues to recycle the old conventional wisdom regarding the Wilson/Plame story. Kevin cites this story and the following excerpt as supposedly exculpating Wilson re…
Trackback by Pejmanesque — 7/15/2004 @ 4:01 pm
Trojan Huddle: Thursday is the new Thursday Edition
After so many short work weeks, it is hard to get back into the groove and realize that Thursday is no longer the new Friday…but we’re muddling through the long, hard slog that is the workweek. So, maybe these stories…
Trackback by BoiFromTroy — 7/15/2004 @ 4:17 pm
You fergot Bush’s latest lie. He said many times that the CPA would hand over authority to Iraq on June 30, 2004. Well, the handover was June 28!
Did you see Bush and Blair smile at each other at the meeting over in Yurrip? They was thinking, “Aha, sneeked one over on them agin!”
Bush and Blair lied!!
Tnen Bremer snuck out without even saying a word to the people he’d enslaved for the past year.
Comment by The Kid — 7/15/2004 @ 4:28 pm
Ulysses:
From Ch. 17 of Wilson’s book, The Politics of Truth:
Quite apart from the matter of her employment, the assertion that Valerie had played any substantive role in the decision to ask me to go to Niger was false on the face of it. Anyone who knows anything about the government bureaucracy knows that public servants go to great lengths to avoid nepotism or any appearance of it. Family members are expressly forbidden from accepting employment that places them in any direct professional relationship, even once or twice removed. Absurd as these lengths may seem, a supervisor literally cannot even supervise the supervisor of the supervisor of another family member without high-level approval. Valerie could not have stood in the chain of command had she tried to. Dick Cheney might be able to find a way to appoint one of his daughters to a key decision-making position in the State Department’s Middle East Bureau, as he did; but Valerie could not - and would not if she could - have had anything to do with the CIA decision to ask me to travel to Niamey.
Comment by Lawrence — 7/15/2004 @ 6:52 pm
Um, The Kid, this is irony, right?
Comment by antimedia — 7/15/2004 @ 6:53 pm
Yes, irony, with extra starch.
I was trying to bolster the preceding posts. The far left has a history of using obfuscation, confusion, and lies to cover up the nasty deeds of their allies and themselves. To them the deeds are but a nasty by-product of the glorious struggle to attain the workers’ paradise. Their psychosis is such that they believe that others do the same thing, the old tu quoque gambit. They therefore find it distressing when they cannot counter logical arguments and facts, and must fall back on that which has already been argued and disproved, causing folks like you and me to head for the tavern to wash away the frustration. When you or I tell the truth, they truly believe we are lying.
Unfortunately, the short-attention span of most of the media works to their advantage. Most media folks can’t follow an intricate argument, they deal with and understand sound bites. If it’s over a paragraph, it’s too long. When someone says, “That’s old news,” boom, that’s it, that’s enough, next topic, please.
I enjoy the give-and-take of a good argument; my goal is to convert, so I bob, weave, parry, thrust, but never shout or insult. I take on honest lefties with glee, but they are hard to find. I am often tempted to use the “Cheney to Leahey” message with the snakes who impugn motives with the vilest spin imaginable. That of course is not productive, but trying to engage in an honest exchange of ideas is not either.
Comment by The Kid — 7/15/2004 @ 7:47 pm
Would some helpful soul post or email a link which has a concise intel dump of l’Affaire Wilson? I came in in the middle of this and I’m not quite sure what’s going on. Thanks, and watch the spam trap if you’re emailing.
Comment by The Sanity Inspector — 7/15/2004 @ 8:39 pm
For starters you could try clicking the first link in the post, and the links contained in the link you reach. Let me know if that helps.
Comment by Patterico — 7/15/2004 @ 8:43 pm
Outrageous Attempts by Big Media to Control What You Think
Don't miss: - Moxie's "conversation":http://moxie.nu/moveabletype/archives/002025.php#002025 with AOL's "SmarterChild" IM bot, which is *programmed to tell kids to vote Democratic* and even that Republicans are ba…
Trackback by The Big Picture — 7/16/2004 @ 10:47 am
You could visit my blog and look at the (lengthy) timeline post I did referncing the pages in the SICR.
Comment by antimedia — 7/16/2004 @ 4:45 pm
Wilson and the media
Tim Rutten considers in the Times why Roger L. Simon would call the former ambassador-turned-author Joseph C. Wilson “a deeply evil human being” and other blogger obsessions, in a piece that argues the media did not miss the story on…
Trackback by L.A. Observed — 7/17/2004 @ 11:08 am
“WHY WON’T THE MEDIA TELL THE TRUTH?”
The LA Times has a good question, so why don’t they answer it Instead, they’d rather smear the blogosphere and those who’ve exposed the deceptions of the LA Times….
Trackback by PRESTOPUNDIT -- "must readings" says Nick Schutz — 7/19/2004 @ 9:54 pm