Is Everything We Know About Joe Wilson’s Trip to Niger Wrong?

National Review ^ | Byron York

[Freee-dame]

Does anyone dispute the the Dem/liberal propaganda machine is effective and that of the GOP's is pathetic?

It is very distressing when you believe your team to be superior, but unwilling to do what is needed to win, even when what is needed is moral and upright.

[Buckhead]

Okie, I like door number 2 - a malignant intent to undermine the President's position from the very outset.

[Sioux-san]

One fact still remains - Joe Wilson has never been put under oath to testify to any of this. Why this special protection from the Justice Dept. and Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald??? Valerie recommended her husband because he was hot to do it. To think there are citizens who have gone to jail for perjury on far less serious matters. Perjury is perjury and it subverts our legal/justice system. Let's get ol' Joe under oath. Now!

[woofie]

I think you are right that something else is behind this but I dont think the trap was about impeachment ,it was meant to get the Bush administration voted out of office.
When that didnt happen I would think there would be payback, bigtime ...

My fantasy is that Bush at some point puts the cards on the table and ends wiping out the Democrats ...is this only a fantasy? If not when does it happen?

[woofie]

so is that why Bush was so nice to Tenet when he went packing?

[Steve_Seattle]

I think York is making too much of this. We already knew that Wilson wasn't directly sent by Cheney, but by CIA intermediaries. If others at the CIA also had the idea - a day or two before Cheney - of checking out the Niger story, and were already thinking of sending Wilson, I don't that that is particularly significant.

[Steve_Seattle]

"I don't see much significance in this."

Agreed. This just shows that Cheney wasn't the only one who wanted to check out the Niger story. We already knew that Cheney did not directly select or send Wilson.

[Iwo Jima]

Bingo! When was this plot hatched, and by whom?

I think that the CIA always has contingency plans to take out any president. Clinton knew that and gave them free reign, declining to even meet with them more than a few times.

Clinton and the CIA had a mutual agreement -- they each agreed to leave the other alone to do their own thing. The CIA vastly prefers that to a president who actually tries to run the government as a president should.

[Dems_R_Losers]

It is extremely significant. Wilson sold Nick Kristof a bill of goods. The only reason Kristof wrote about Wilson in the first place was that he believed Wilson was sent to Niger directly on the request of VP Cheney. The reason the New York Times later published Wilson's op-ed was because they thought it would make Cheney look bad. Wilson would not have been nearly so interesting to the Times had he just been a low-level former ambassador sent to Niger by his wife at the CIA.

In addition, if it can be proven unequivocally that Wilson's trip was not connected to Cheney or anyone at the White House at all, then the whole "White House conspiracy to out Plame to retaliate against Wilson" theory is shot to hell, along with any possible motive for Scooter Libby to lie to the grand jury.

[DCPatriot]

The unfiltered news we get on the internet will lead to violent overthrow and/or revolution. Thomas Jefferson would be proud.

I'm 60 and probably won't see it...but my children most certainly will.

I believe the Left is trying to silence us because they don't want to see their leaders' names on any 'enemies' list...which is certainly coming one of these days.

[tarheelswamprat]

Okie, I like door number 2 - a malignant intent to undermine the President's position from the very outset.

Your characterization of this as a silent-coup is essentially correct. It's just one facet of an internal "civil war" and slow-motion coup which has been ongoing for years among powerful competing interests in our governing classes (this includes elected officials, the bureaucracy, the Judiciary, the MSM, and of course the political parties). Basically this was another variation of the same "Iron Triangle" consisting of the intelligence community, the MSM and the DNC co-operating to bring down an administration that we saw in action in the fall of Richard Nixon.

[pinz-n-needlez]

Your explanation makes the term, "Plausible Deniability" come to mind... :-/

[Txsleuth]

This article is very interesting...one of the aspects that I am really intersted in is the Senate Intelligence Committee...

We know that Rockefailure is the Chairman NOW..but even before, he was doing everything in his power to make Bush, Cheney ..and all parties seem as if there was a concerted PLAN to lie to get us into war.

I have always wondered if the Wilson trip wasn't a "set up" by someone...

Very interesting

Thanks for the ping.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

In addition, if it can be proven unequivocally that Wilson's trip was not connected to Cheney or anyone at the White House at all, then the whole "White House conspiracy to out Plame to retaliate against Wilson" theory is shot to hell, along with any possible motive for Scooter Libby to lie to the grand jury.

Won't matter if it can be proven or not. Proof is not the issue. The issue is if it can sell enough papers and prime time ads for the MSM to shed their bias. Boring proof is not a factor.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks for the ping...intrigue and conspiracy is always so fascinating to read ....

[KJC1]

Plame ping.

[AmeriBrit]

Thanks Howlin.

If Joe Wilson was sent to Niger by VP Cheney, why would the VP be asking these questions on the clipping of Wilsons newspaper article AFTER the fact?


"Have they done this sort of thing before?

Send an Amb. to answer a question?

Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us?

Or did his wife send him on a junkett?"

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/cheney-notes/

[colorado tanker]

Nailed it!

[colorado tanker]

Actually, the view that Plame and Wilson were running an operation to discredit the 16 words may be the most straightforward explanation. They had to have help, though, because Cheney's question remains unanswered to this day - why would you send a retired ambassador to do this, knowing he'll get nothing but official denials?

[Amalie]

Thanks. What you laid does sum up the smoking gun aspect of the data, but will be make any difference in this monkey trial? - I doubt it. Not disparaging the info, just reality checking that this thing is such a miscarriage of justice right now that no real answers are going to get traction.