Joe Wilson Lies! Debunkable?

[rjung]

@Hentor the Barbarian

It is exceptionally sad to me that the practice of character assassination has the status that it does today, and that the media appear to be such willing participants in it.

Damn that liberal media!

@Hentor the Barbarian

At what point will it be possible for someone to stand up and say “Have you no shame, sir? At long last, have you no shame?”

Didn’t Michael Moore try that at the Oscars last year?

[minty_green]

The cogs of the right-wing smear machine continue spinning, truth be damned. Today, it’s William Safire in the New York Times. Safire continues the smear job on Wilson on the basis that Plame recommended him for the job. Yet he never bothers to mention–much like the Intelligence Committee report, which, I discovered over the weekend, was dissented to by all of the Democrats on the panel when it came to the Niger uranium story in general and the Wilson/Plame matter in particular–that at least some of the CIA folks who should know insist that they, not Plame, raised the idea of sending Wilson to Africa to check it out.

Safire also relies on the French intelligence report to lend support to Bush’s State of the Union claim, but does not mention that the French report was based entirely on the counterfeit documents. He further claims that “with no objection from C.I.A., the famous 16 words went into Bush’s 2003 State of the Union,” ignoring the repeated, incessant warnings from both the CIA and the State Department that the story was somewhere in the range of unconfirmed, dubious, or complete crap. Good god, it was only a couple months after the CIA had convinced the White House to affirmatively remove the Niger claim from the President’s speech in Dayton.

I find it inconceivable that Safire is not aware of these things. But I guess lies, damn lies, and glaring omissions are the stock in trade of the right wing smear machine. Just don’t ask me how they manage to live with themselves.

[tagos]

@minty green

But that doesn’t explain why he still has the backing of Labour’s M.P.'s. I mean, Blair led the British left into that damn fool war kicking and screaming. Now everyone but Blair knows that the whole thing was a colossal fuckup, and Labour is still supporting him in sufficient numbers to maintain him as P.M.? Jesus, the Tories finally buried their knives in Thatcher’s in the back for a lot less than that.

That party has a complex collegiate procedure for electing a new leader, it’s not just the MP’s that have a say. In practice this makes it very difficult to get rid of him. And any British PM has a whole swathe of patronage posts that ensure the loyalty of a large, hope-to-be in a postion of power, bunch of MP’s.

In practice the only hope of replacing him without a bloodbath that risks destroying Labour electibility, is Blair resigning.

[elucidator]

@minty green

…I find it inconceivable that Safire is not aware of these things. But I guess lies, damn lies, and glaring omissions are the stock in trade of the right wing smear machine. Just don’t ask me how they manage to live with themselves.

It’s all over the tedia these days, how the “unanimous” report from the Senate concludes that Bush’s claim of uranium sales “may have some basis in fact”. Yes, the report is “unanimous”, except for those parts that aren’t “unanimous”, which aren’t, technically, part of the report but more or less an addendum.

The estimable Mr. Marshall, of http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/, without which no citizen can hope to be informed, has an excellent, if somewhat numbing, explication of the complex chicanery involved. Go down to the part where it says “deep into the woods of the Iraq-Niger saga…” Get your coffee first, you’re going to need it.

[aside] I’m particularly fond of the Mark Shields/David Brooks dialogue on Fridays Lehrer Report. (Liked Paul Gigot a lot better…) Shields is pretty much invariably polite, if barbed, towards Brooks. But when Safire replaces Brooks on occassion, Shields treats him like the deranged cousin kept in the attic and fed on fish heads. He laughs at (and with) Brooks, he sneers at Safire. [/aside]