The In-Credible Mr. Wilson.

In the aftermath of Friday’s indictment of I. Lewis Libby, the MSM has engaged in an orgy of blame and reprobation against the Bush Administration. Independent council Patrick Fitzgerald cautioned against reading into the indictment, against using it as a comment on the war. But much of the media has ignored him to do just that. The Philadelphia Enquirer ran a front page "analysis" by Dick Polman with the headline:
“Libby prosecution puts justification for war on trial.” Meanwhile on this morning’s McLaughlin Group, Eleanor Clift the liberal conscience of Newsweek was busy saying that it doesn’t matter that the federal justice system has found it impossible to make a case for an administration wide conspiracy. She is going to help make it in “the court of public opinion.”

In celebration, both CBS’ 60 Minutes, and NBC’s dateline ran pieces about Valerie and Joseph Wilson, featuring interviews with Joseph Wilson. To be sure on Dateline Wilson made a point to demur from claiming victim status for himself or his wife. He made it clear that the victim here is the nation. To be fair this echoes Mr. Fitzpatrick’s assertion, along with the CIA’s that the blowing of Ms Plame/Mrs Wilson’s cover is a National Security issue. And one I have to agree with.

If anyone intentionally blew Ms Plame’s cover, they deserve to be punished. But the burden of proof here is high. To violate this law, one would have to know that the agent’s status was covert. Mr. Fitzpatrick has thus far been unable to make this case against anyone, and in spite of the MSM’s slanted reporting, he has not left the investigation open “against” Carl Rove or anyone else. He has kept the investigation open, and will empanel another grand jury, as a procedural convenience to support the expected US v. Libby trial.

The media has focused entirely on the administration players. They continue to ignore the roles played by some of their own members, including Robert Novack, the man who really damaged National Security by publishing the information. And they have practically lionized Joseph Wilson . This in spite of the essential dishonesty of his original role in this drama. A role which was publicly as petty and destructive as anything that the MSM attributes to Libby, Cheney Rove et al.

Wilson opened the first act with his inaccurate and self centered account of his trip to Niger. Wilson made a variety of claims about this trip which were misleading, some were outright lies. He started lying with his claim that the VP’s office originated the request for his trip, to backstop an unseen intelligence report from the CIA. It turns out the CIA was looking to back up its own position which ran counter to VP’s.

Wilson who never filed a formal report, but was merely debriefed by the State Dept. and CIA, Did write the now famous NY Times Op-Ed piece. In it seemed particularly upset that his information was ignored. This is in spite of the massive amount of equivocal intelligence that was coming in. Nobody listened to poor Joe Wilson. Maybe he should have actually written a report, before he went public.

Wilson seems to think that his inability to find evidence that Hussein had acquired uranium in one country Nigeria disproves that he attempted to acquire it in any African nation. Again to be fair Mr. Wilson, his investigation was probably thorough enough to show that Hussein had not succeeded in acquisition. It in no way proves that Hussein had not inquired about and attempted to purchase yellowcake. Wilson’s case cannot address this, because short of success any attempt would remain covert.

Mr. Wilson was apparently frustrated over what he perceived as the slight of being ignored. Despite the fact that he was a State Dept. officer for over twenty years he seems terribly naïve about the intelligence process. Even though he had never filed an official report of his findings, even though there was a raging debate over the entire intelligence package on WMD, even though his finding didn’t quite disprove a covert attempt somewhere in Africa, he wanted to be listened to.

So when President Bush went on to mention what his people still considered the possibility of Iraqi uranium quest in Africa, Joe Wilson took it personally. Though he had an apparently high standard of proof for the attempt in Africa, he assumed that in “ignoring” his finding (still unpublished), the administration was “intentionally twisting the facts. So he finally sat down to write a report.

This was a public account of the trip on the op-ed page of the NY Times. There for the first time Wilson wrote down the findings of his trip to Niger. But he outright lied about the circumstances leading up to the trip. So now we have a Washington insider, with a wife who not only works for the CIA, but who recommended him for the trip to Niger, writing a false account of how he was selected for that trip, out of pique at being ignored. If I was Valery Plame I’d have killed my husband around then. They both should have suspected what was coming.

While the Wilson’s had a moral right to expect the administration to respect Valery Plame’s career, they should have been savvy enough to see the risk. Particularly since: A) Wilson falsely attributed the VPs office as the originator of his trip. And B) Mrs Wilson nee Plame had actually recommended him for the role. In almost any political staff effective enough to win the presidency, there are going to be operatives well versed in the tactics of smearing in leaking. To expect that everyone who worked for Bush and Cheney would take the moral high ground, and allow Mr. Wilson to perpetuate his false version of why he went to Niger seems the height of folly. In effect Mr. Wilson was hiding behind his wife’s cover, betting that the entirety of the Bush team would let him lie rather than blow her cover. He reminds me of the little boy crying to his mother after picking a fight with his older brother, and losing.


Crossposted at Mudville Gazette
Another Rovian Conspiracy
New England Republican
Betsy's Page