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Desperate Democrats/Dishonest, then Disingenous AP

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Amazing how desperate the Democrats are to find a Bush Administration scandal. While trying to get caught up on my e-mail and checking the news, I chanced on this story, Bush claims privilege to withhold CIA leak records, leading the headlines on Yahoo! My Congressman, Henry Waxman, chairman of House Oversight Committee, is still investigating something already investigated by a zealous and exacting fellow prosecutor.

Yup, ol’ Henry is probing the leak of Valerie Plame’s name, even though Patrick Fitzgerald, the aforementioned prosecutor, after a thorough investigation, did not indict anyone for the underlying offense (i.e., that which he was hired to investigate). In other words, there was no crime.

What is interesting here is not just the Democrats endless probing of this story, but the disingenuous coverage in the MSM. In the first version I read, the Associated Press’s Laurie Kellman reported:

They also include notes about the 2003 State of the Union address, during which President Bush made the case for invading Iraq in part by saying Saddam Hussein was pursuing uranium ore to make a nuclear weapon. That information turned out to be wrong.

(I have saved that version as a .pdf.)

Well, in that version, it wasn’t the information that turned out to be wrong, but Ms. Kellman’s reporting. While the White House may have retracted those remarks, the evidence shows that Bush was not lying. Here’s the president said in that 2003 address: “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” And the evidence, including a British intelligence review of their government’s claim, backs him up.

So, AP changed the paragraph:

Other records sought by the House committee include notes about Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address, during which he made the case for invading Iraq in part by saying Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was pursuing uranium ore in Africa to make a nuclear weapon. In the spring of 2003, [Joe] Wilson claimed publicly that he had gone to Africa for the CIA to investigate the report and advised the administration it was false months before Bush cited it in the State of the Union speech.

That paragraph is true, but incomplete. Wilson did indeed make such public claims. And he had indeed gone to Africa. But, the CIA found his findings (which he delivered orally) lent credence to claims that Saddam was trying to get yellowcake from Iraq. Not just that, Mr. Wilson could produce no evidence that the Administration had even been aware of his report.

Of course if the White House had been aware of Joe’s mission, it would have gotten the CIA’s interpretation–which would have helped confirm the words the president spoke in the SOTU.

I wonder why Ms. Kellman and her editors at the AP chose to leave that out?

Comments

  1. Amazing how desperate the Democrats are to find a Bush Administration scandal.

    Does anybody really expect the liberals to actually do anything useful? You know, like carry out “the will of the people”?

    And we’re supposed to believe they’ll sweep Congress in November based on……ummm….What exactly is that based on???

  2. Based on the fact that the economy is tanking, gas prices are skyrocketing, food prices are skyrocketing and most Americans, encouraged and even directed by the press, blame Republicans who are no longer in power, instead of the Democrats who actually write the budgets and laws now, who have blocked all attempts at increasing domestic oil and other energy supply, who wrote the law that forced lenders to give loans out to people who wouldn’t otherwise qualify, who championed the biofuels that are responsible for 75% of the increase in food prices, and who have been doing everything in their power to ensure defeat in Iraq, and talk down the economy for their own political gain.

    Republicans could sweep this November if they’d only pull their heads outta their asses and educate the people.

    So aggravating.

  4. And we’re supposed to believe they’ll sweep Congress in November based on……ummm….What exactly is that based on???

    Becasue the Republicans have accepted the lies that were publicized by the media by a pyschological warfare operation done by the Left.

    The (R) Party dropped conservativism and flails around , rudderless.

  5. Once again, the AP, the NYT and other MSM outlets are practicing 1984’s “Ministry of Truth” operations and cutting out/editing whole stories to fit their worldview.

    Is there anyone here who doesn’t think that if snObama gets elected, he’ll appoint a Secretary of Truth? And given a Dhimmicrat majority in the Senate, he’d probably get it.

    Shudder.

    Regards,
    Peter H.

  7. As if going to war based on a lie, letting Osama bin Laden’s Family leave the country, creating a Second Vietnam in Iraq, having gay hustlers pose as newsmen, ruing the country financially and letting a major city fall to ruins isn’t scandal enough.

  9. Meanwhile, we have this wonderful tidbit from snObama in Colorado Springs on July 2. Wonder why nobody in the MSM is talking about it?

    “We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set.”

    Then it gets interesting:

    “We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”

    A CIVILIAN national security force? One made up of Dhimmicrats and far-left-winguts (right, same thing), no doubt. Gee, will they wear brown shirts too?

    Sieg heil snObama.

    Regards,
    Peter H.

  17. You disengenuous pratts. No-One EXCEPT “Scooter” Libby was indicted because the Chief of Staff to the Vice President LIED. He was CONVICTED of obstructing a criminal investigation. By pardoning him, President Bush circumvented the legal process that would have brought pressure to bear to coerce Libby to testify as to the involvement of Cheney, Bush, Rove, etc in the ILLEGAL OUTING of a CIA Agent in a time of war. This outing by the way DESTROYED THE CIA Cover business and resulted in untold deaths of covert agents.

    [Can you provide any evidence to back up your rant, particularly about the deaths of covert agents — Dan]

    So of course the price of gas is much more important than high crimes by the unitary executive.

    Kelly L.
    USN Retired

  18. #18: Kelly L, you seem very outraged about the “illegal outing” of a CIA agent and that it didn’t lead to Cheney, Bush and Rove being thrown in jail. So, I was just wondering…care to share your opinion on the following story (which I’m SURE you haven’t already seen elsewhere):

    http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjU1ODhlNDYzNDg4NGI4ODYzMmE3NDRhMjc1ODQ2MTU=

    “It involves a request from The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has sent a letter to the New York Times, protesting the paper’s naming of a former CIA anti-terrorism interrogator. The CIA had objected to revealing of the man’s name, but the Times decided to go ahead anyway. There was a case a while back in which many on the left became very upset about the revelation of a CIA employee’s name. So far, that does not seem to be happening in this case.”

    Are you filled with an equal sense of rage when the NYT takes it upon itself to publicly “out” CIA anti-terrorism interrogators even when the CIA has asked the paper not to? Or is this just not relevant to you? Why isn’t this story being reported by the MSM?

  19. The difference between a journalist company publishing illegal information and the Executive Branch of the Federal Governement publishing illegal information is that tax dollars don’t pay the salary of the journalist.

    Now quit throwing out red herrings, prosecute criminals. Bush himself said at the time of the release that he wanted to know who it was that leaked the information.

    kelly L.

  20. #20: Oh, I see. So, if the name of a CIA employee who deals (at most) with the terrorism exhibited by the ladies in the typing pool in a Virginia office (when she’s not posing for Vanity Fair photo spreads), then there should be screaming outrage across the nation and a house-to-house manhunt for the culprit because he or she is paid a government salary. But where the identity of a CIA operative who deals directly with terrorists is splashed across the NYT AFTER the CIA requested that a pseudonym be used, well that’s apples to oranges because the journalist receives a private sector salary. Of course, the fact that CIA operatives in the same field have been targeted with death threats and have had to leave the country with their families when their identities have been revealed is just,…well…unfortunate I guess. The people have a right to know. Thank you for clarifying that the crucial distinction is not the actual peril the “outed” recipient faces, but rather the source of their paycheck.

    And BTW, like Dan, I am VERY curious to hear the details about the “untold deaths of covert agents.” Did the assassinations go down at a Vanity Fair shoot? That’s exciting! Or, by “untold” did you mean that you had no intention of telling us any facts to back up your bold statement?

    As for your unshakeable belief that the Plame “scandal” involved Bush, Cheney and Rove (in addition to Libby), don’t worry about supplying any facts to prove it–we know you don’t have any proof and that it is based on pure, angry, bitter speculation. We’ve known that for a long time. And so have you.

  21. The difference between a journalist company publishing illegal information and the Executive Branch of the Federal Governement publishing illegal information is that tax dollars don’t pay the salary of the journalist.

    Wow, I didnt know that the Fed Govt publishes Robert Novak’s column.

    Thank you for revealing this new information that no one else had noticed.