[William McKinley]

"Actually, Wilson has plenty of choices — but no basis for his slanderous allegation. A little background: Mr. Wilson was sent to Niger by the CIA to verify a U.S. intelligence report about the sale of yellowcake — because Vice President Dick Cheney requested it, because Cheney had doubts about the validity of the intelligence report.

I guess you are misreading this, thinking it says Cheney requested Wilson. There is another way of reading it though- that Cheney requested verification (not specifying who). Which reading is correct? For this, we can look to the statement by Tenet:

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 Nigerian 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.

Because this report, in our view, did not resolve whether Iraq was or was not seeking uranium from abroad, it was given a normal and wide distribution, but we did not brief it to the president, vice president or other senior administration officials.

As for 'raging', I am quite calm, and pretty amused by the whole thing. I like watching when the Democrats get themselves into an irrational frenzy. It almost always backfires, and it will this time.

And Wilson was not qualified to do anything, except maybe arrange for a Clinton tour of the area.

[MonroeDNA]

Correct me if I am wrong, but to you, does this sound like somebody approached Cheney with an idea, and he signed off on it, not knowing it was going to be some axe-grinder?

Hence the dismissal of the report?

I am way over my head here...excuse me while I duck and go away.

[No Truce With Kings]

"As for 'raging', I am quite calm, and pretty amused by the whole thing. I like watching when the Democrats get themselves into an irrational frenzy. It almost always backfires, and it will this time."

You are a better man than me, then. I am really hacked at the way a fraud (Wilkinson) and a fool (Wilson) have been able to bait Republicans into a big "search for the guilty" over a non-issue and a set of their lies. They are playing a game of "Let's You and Him Fight," and the conservatives are falling for it. And yeah, I am mad about that.