Posted on 07/14/2004 4:34:39 PM PDT by Plutarch
Another high-profile John Kerry supporter was outed as a nutcase this week: Joseph C. Wilson IV, the Walter Mitty of conspiracy theorists. Wilson is the ne'er-do-well WASP embraced by the Democrats last year for calling Bush a liar. Wilson claimed to be shocked, appalled, alarmed when President Bush said during his 2003 State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
Wilson was shocked because, in 2002, he had been sent on an unpaid make-work job to Niger to "investigate" whether Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium ore from Niger. Wilson's method of investigating consisted of asking African potentates questions like: Did you commit a horrible crime, which, if so, would ruin your country's relationship with the United States? I have no independent means of corroborating this, so be honest!
On the basis of the answers he got, Wilson concluded that Saddam had not sought uranium ore from Niger. Since "Africa" means "Niger" and "British intelligence" means "Joseph Wilson," Wilson realized in horror that Bush's statement referred to Wilson's very own report! Out of love for his country and an insatiable desire to have someone notice his worthless existence, Wilson wrote an op-ed in The New York Times calling Bush a liar.
The whole story was already nutty enough to be believed by every columnist at The New York Times. But then journalist Robert Novak revealed that Clown Wilson had been sent as an unpaid intern to Niger by his wife, a chair-warmer at the CIA who apparently wanted to get him out of the house. This in turn provoked our own Walter Mitty to accuse Karl Rove of outing his wife as an undercover "spy" in retaliation for his attacks on the Bush administration. (And P. Diddy told me Britney Spears is out to get me! I'm a spy too!)
In response to Wilson's crazy behavior, he was made an adviser to the Kerry campaign. He was also fawned over by Vanity Fair magazine, embraced by Democratic senators like Jon Corzine of New Jersey, hailed as a patriot in The New York Times, awarded The Nation magazine's "Award for Truth-Telling" and given a lucrative book contract.
According to The Washington Post, Wilson began wiling away his once-empty days discussing "who would play (his wife) in the movie" and fantasizing about how his obituary would read. His favorites were: "Joseph C. Wilson IV, the Bush I administration political appointee who did the most damage to the Bush II administration ..." and "Joseph C. Wilson IV, the husband of the spy the White House outed ..."
I'm not sure we were waiting for any more evidence on whether Wilson was an idiot, but this week we found out he's a liar, too. The Senate report on the CIA's intelligence gathering concluded that, contrary to Wilson's statements about his own report, his findings had bolstered rather than undermined the case that Saddam had sought uranium from Niger.
Most amusingly, despite Wilson's insistence that he had been tapped for the Niger trip based on his nonexistent expertise and zero credentials, the Senate committee produced his wife's memo recommending her husband for the (unpaid) job. This followed Wilson's assertions that his wife "definitely had not proposed that I make the trip" and his astonishment that anyone could imagine his wife was "somehow involved in this," saying that "just defies logic."
When presented with the memo from his wife recommending him for the job, Wilson said only that his wife was not the one who made the decision to send him to Niger. This cleared up the matter for anyone who had been under the impression Wilson was married to George Tenet.
As an aside, I note that the main point of the Senate report was to slam the agency for its Mickey Mouse intelligence gathering on weapons of mass destruction. Guess what Wilson's wife does at the CIA? That's right! She gathers intelligence on weapons of mass destruction! No wonder she claims to be "undercover." Her fantasist husband calls the incompetent CIA paper-pusher "Jane Bond." (I'm an astronaut!)
The implicit deal the government has always had with worthless, rich WASPs is they get trivial, make-work jobs with the Foreign Service so they can go around calling themselves "diplomats"; but the trade-off is, they're not supposed to make fools of themselves or commit treason. It's not that high a hurdle. Unlike the Ivy League WASPs of yesteryear, at least worthless WASPs from the lower-ranked schools like Wilson have, thus far, managed to avoid treason. Merely being an ass shouldn't cause many problems for the country – except that: One political party embraced the ass.
Wilson is an "unpaid foreign affairs adviser" to the Kerry campaign. (In yet another testament to the wisdom of the market, all Wilson's "jobs" seem to be unpaid.) Indeed, Wilson's website, denouncing the perfidy of the Bush administration, was created and paid for by "John Kerry for President." (Why haven't any crack investigative journalists noticed that?)
This may explain why Kerry was boasting about foreign leaders supporting him earlier this year: He was trying to distract voters from the fact that his strongest base of support in the United States consists of lonely fantasists hoping to make some new friends.
She implies that Tenet sent Wilson. He did not.
Great Hendrie pic!
Somehow, these revelations have failed to make much of a ripple in the lamestream media.
Thanks, Shermy! Going to go try to copy it now.
Other than her mis-spelling of "whiling", just what factual errors did you spot?
I too am curious.
One thing that I noticed was missing from Ann's piece is the devastating admission by Wilson that some of his assertions involved “a little literary flair.” Lying, in other words.
No, you have it backward. Wilson wrote his little article for the NYT, and was picked up by Chris Lehane, who was working for Kerry at the time. Lehane arranged the Vanity Fair article and the media frenzy. I bet that explains a lot, knowing that Chris Lehane was responsible for this bombshell.
OK, thet's go through this.
Tenet was the head of the CIA, was he not?
The CIA sent Wilson to Niger, did they not?
Ergo, Tenet sent Wilson to Niger.
If you are saying that a lower level rogue functionary authorized Wilson's trip, whould you happen to know the name?
Yes, Valerie Plame. Tenet claimed he did not know about the trip until afterward.
I LOVE YOU, ANNIE COULTER!!!!
----alas, she doesn't even know I exist.
But if she's reading this, please respond:
Annie dear, I know great minds think alike, but
in one of the final chapters of TREASON,on the first page of that chapter, you make a statement about 9/11 that reads almost EXAcTLY like something I wrote on FR many months before the book even came out or I was even aware of its imminent publication, let alone any of its contents. Could this be a co-inkydink, Annie, or do you owe me money?
This was the second example of a curious syndrome: I made a statement to my bitter-end Liberal in-laws a few weeks before Clinton was inaugurated for his FIRST term ( this was nearly 12 years ago.) I said Clinton wanted to launch the entire country on a national 12-step program. Probably 4 or 5 years later, I heard Laura Ingraham make the exact same comment. Now, I know Laura couldn't have heard me in my in-law's room at the Empire Hotel in NYC, but...I dunno, maybe it's something about me and blonde conservative chickies........
No, you have it backward. Wilson wrote his little article for the NYT, and was picked up by Chris Lehane, who was working for Kerry
Shermy? ref?
Joe Wilson went to the Richard Holbrook School for Pompous Asses.....and got a magna cum laud....just like Holbrooke. They will get their's........SOMETIME....the hoist is ready.
July 16, 2003
excerpt:
There was fragmentary intelligence gathered in late 2001 and early 2002 on the allegations of Saddam's efforts to obtain additional raw uranium from Africa, beyond the 550 metric tons already in Iraq. In an effort to inquire about certain reports involving Niger, CIA's counter-proliferation experts, on their own initiative, asked an individual with ties to the region to make a visit to see what he could learn. He reported back to us that one of the former Nigerien (sic) officials he met stated that he was unaware of any contract being signed between Niger and rogue states for the sale of uranium during his tenure in office. The same former official also said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him and insisted that the former official meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Iraq and Niger. The former official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales. The former officials also offered details regarding Niger's processes for monitoring and transporting uranium that suggested it would be very unlikely that material could be illicitly diverted. There was no mention in the report of forged documents -- or any suggestion of the existence of documents at all.
~snip~
Plame's Input Is Cited on Niger Mission
excerpt:
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.
~snip~
There's more in the report--I just quick knew where to find the WaPo article which alludes to the sub-group designing the trip and assigning the intrepid Monsieur Wilson to set forth to sip tea.
OK, who had 30 in the pool?
This guy and his wife are a real piece of work.
Too bad I don't see anything here that could form the basis of a criminal indictment, but it surely is close to the line.
I don't believe Ann ever makes errors, but then again I have no evidence that you make any either, so I will just agree with both of you and focus on reveling in the fact that Joey Wilson has been outed as a blithering idiot. That's enough triumph for one evening.
Too many words, not enough pictures.
Eat, Ann, EAT! You're gonna DIE!
I know I've been having my fingers and toes crossed for an indictment on something!
I don't have a reference, I just have a good memory. It stuck im my mind because Lehane was the one who dug up the Bush DUI before the 2000 election, and was working for Kerry as the dirty hit guy last summer. He left the Kerry campaign to work for Dean, I think. Now he's working for Michael Moore.
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