The Joseph C. Wilson IV Everyone Should Remember
Wednesday, March 7. 2007
From The New Editor by way of Gateway Pundit: gatewaypundit.blogspot.com
While I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has been found guilty of perjury by a Washington, DC jury, it no way vindicates the assertions made by former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV that he found proof that the Bush Administration 'twisted' or 'made up' evidence in the build up to the invasion of Iraq.
In fact, there is ample evidence to show that Mr. Wilson materially misrepresented many of his claims.
As the Washington Post's Susan Schmidt reported on the findings of a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report: (emphasis added) (via Instapundit)
The panel found that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address.
From a Washington Post editorial: (emphasis added)
Mr. Wilson was embraced by many because he was early in publicly charging that the Bush administration had "twisted," if not invented, facts in making the case for war against Iraq. In conversations with journalists or in a July 6, 2003, op-ed, he claimed to have debunked evidence that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger; suggested that he had been dispatched by Mr. Cheney to look into the matter; and alleged that his report had circulated at the highest levels of the administration.
A bipartisan investigation by the Senate intelligence committee subsequently established that all of these claims were false -- and that Mr. Wilson was recommended for the Niger trip by Ms. Plame, his wife. When this fact, along with Ms. Plame's name, was disclosed in a column by Robert D. Novak, Mr. Wilson advanced yet another sensational charge: that his wife was a covert CIA operative and that senior White House officials had orchestrated the leak of her name to destroy her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson.
These facts should be remembered.
And Mr. Wilson's words -- which help illuminate his political views -- should be remembered as well, as we noted back in April 2006:
One of the posters at Daily Kos saw former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV* speak at Florida State University in March, quoting him fairly extensively at the Kiddie Blog.
After reading these quotes made at a public event, how can anyone continue to take this guy seriously?
Here are just a sampling of the quotes:
On "Neoconservatives":
The neocons need to be forced back into the dark holes from which they crawled. They are nothing but parasites who serve nobody and nothing but themselves who are using the Republican Party as a serving host.
On the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol:
It still amazes me when I still see that drunk Bill Kristol on tv every week still spewing the same nonsense he was spewing 3 years ago.
On US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad:
Zalmay Khalilzad? I'd like to punch him right in the face. I've never seen met him and I'd prefer never to see his face but yeah. He has never been right about one thing in 20 years. He is simply another neoconservative that has gotten every single thing wrong.
On President of the World Bank Paul Wolfowitz and US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton:
Wolfowitz did his best to destroy the Department of Defense so I guess it's time for him to go destroy the World Bank and he's got a willing partner in John Bolton who has taken it upon himself to destroy the United Nations, an organization that, since its' inception, the U.S. has benefitted from as much or more so than it has given.
On RNC Chair Ken Mehlman, Rep. David Dreier (R-CA):
You know when they first started trying to come up with a way to discredit me, which we now know started in March of 2003, they went through the old standbys. 'He's had 3 wives, he's a womanizer, he's done drugs.' But then they realized they couldnt' use those because I've never actually denied them. I mean I'm the first to admit that, unlike Ken Mehlman and David Dreier, I really like women.
On columnist Ann Coulter:
Ann Coulter and others came up with the crap that Joe coudlnt' get a job on his own, he needed his wife to find one for him because "he's a wussy man". Well, when I thought about it, I wasn't really all that surprised hearing it from Ann. After all, she is a rather manly woman.
On The Daily Show's Jon Stewart and columnist Robert Novak":
Jon Stewart definitely has the best fake news show in the country. In fact I'd say it's even better than the fake news at Fox News Channel. Valerie doesn't like me using this word that Jon uses because she says that it's a bit vulgar so I'm not going to tell you that Jon Stewart calls Bob Novak a "douchebag."
How clever this man Wilson is!
*We inadvertently shorted Mr. Wilson by calling him Joseph C. Wilson III, when it should have been Joseph C. Wilson IV. We sincerely apologize to Joseph C. Wilson III. |
