Joseph Wilson -- The Politics of Insidious Lies

The WaPo editorializes:

[O]ne of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House -- that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame's identity to ruin her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson -- is untrue. The partisan clamor that followed the raising of that allegation by Mr. Wilson in the summer of 2003 led to the appointment of a special prosecutor, a costly and prolonged investigation, and the indictment of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on charges of perjury. All of that might have been avoided had Mr. Armitage's identity been known three years ago.
....
[I]t now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.

Indeed! And now what of the immense damage this fraudulent bastard and his co-conspirators on the left and in the media have done? Do we just forget it all and move on? Unfortunately, that's the way it works in today's political environment.

Remember, this is the despicable liar who titled his book "The Politics of Truth."

Read the editorial here.

Captain Ed is outraged:

It's more than unfortunate -- it was deliberate. Wilson and Plame set up this trip for the purpose of discrediting the elected officials of the American government in an attempt to keep them from exercising their policies on intelligence and foreign affairs. Wilson lied and deceived people, first by leaking his disinformation anonymously to the Post and the New York Times, and then in an editorial that relied on his diplomatic reputation to bolster the credibility of his false accusations.

This set off a political witch hunt the likes of which should embarrass the media and Democrats for years, but probably won't. They demanded an investigation into the leak, especially the editorial board of the New York Times, then wailed as the prosecutor started jailing reporters for non-cooperation. The whole time the media and the mainstream Democratic leadership -- including their presidential nominee John Kerry, who made Wilson a part of his campaign -- insisted that Wilson spoke truth to power, even while Kerry's own Senate intelligence panel reached a very different conclusion.

Now the Left and the media want to continue talking about Scooter Libby rather than the three-year travesty they have foisted on this nation during a time of war. At least the Washington Post knows when to stop.

Read it here.

Lorie Byrd, over at Townhall, discusses a problem that has bothered me a lot lately -- the unreliability of the information purveyed by the Western media and their reluctance to admit error.

There have been quite a few “never mind” media opportunites during the Bush years. They range in significance from such incorrect stories as that of the plastic Thanksgiving turkey in Baghdad, to stories such as those of widespread rape and murder in the Superdome following Hurricane Katrina. Michelle Malkin once used a reference to Emily Litella when writing about the “Gitmo Koran flushing” story. Few of the “never minds” have gotten the prominent play that the original inaccurate reports received though. More distressing is that many of them have passed unrealized at all. Instead of even a “never mind,” too often we have gotten dumb silence.

Read it here.

David Brooks explains why there will be no frenzy of outrage now that Armitage has been outed.

[T]here are four things you must remember about your political class.

First, there is a big difference between politically useful wrongdoing and politically useless wrongdoing, the core of which is that politically useless wrongdoing is not really wrongdoing at all....

Second, you must remember that a scandal is like a shipboard romance, and once it is gone, the magic can never return....

Third, character matters. Richard Armitage, as is often made clear, is the very emblem of martial virtue....

Finally, you must always remember that it's better to be One of Us than One of Them.... Members of the Washington community, like members of all decent communities, protect each other. Richard Armitage is a member of this community....

We only destroy those who are unfashionable.

Read the whole thing here.