On CNN's Inside Politics today I watched dumbfounded as Jack Valenti, the "lefty" opposed in a panel discussion to Bey Buchanan on the right, dismissed the entire Rove/Plame affair as "politics." "I don't see what the big deal is about Wilson and whoever his wife is," he said.
Not a big deal, eh? What the media are failing to focus on is the fact that Wilson's information was solid proof that the Bushies were manipulating intelligence, picking and choosing info to present to the American people to maximize their case for war. Wilson had discredited their African uranium info and they used it anyway in a speech, and Wilson called foul publicly only to have his wife outed by Bob Novak.
Do you think the US would be at war now if this were more thoroughly investigated at the time? Do you think Bush, had this treachery been more aggressively covered in 2003, would have been re-elected?
"What's the big deal?" Argh.
Also, isn't the claim Rove makes to Cooper that Wilson was sent by his wife--and not Dick Cheney's office--a lie? Hello--you journalists who are still afraid to ask tough questions?
In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake--a form of lightly processed ore--by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office.
Joseph C. Wilson the 4th
