2006-04-19

Rethinking Joe Wilson's Story

Hitchy uses the occassion of a new book by Joe Wilson to take a fresh critical look at Wilson's accounting of events. Why did Wilson initially claim incorrectly that the CIA played no role in his selection for the job? Does such a claim constitute a lie? Why does the anti-war activists take Wilson's assessment as the alpha and omega of a Hussein-Niger nuclear connection?

Revealing that Wilson's wife played an essential role in his getting selected for the job undermines Wilson's own false claim to have been selected purely due to his reputation (a claim essential to his authority on the subject) as an expert on the subject. Thus there exists an explanation for revealing his wife's role independant of the left's claim that this revelation served purely to "punish" the wife by "exposing" her. If the left thinks that Bush and Cheney are clever enough to fake a swing at Wilson as a suckerpunch at his wife, why can't they consider that Wilson and his wife were clever enough to set a trap for Bush and Cheney (who the left insist are inept), Wilson go public, giving the Chenushes two bad choices: accept Wilson's false claim to be such an expert on the topic that his reputation would attract others to select him for the job, or falsify that claim by revealing the role of Wilson's wife, permitting the two of them to then counter-punch with feigned outrage over "exposure"?

It defies logic that if they were so protective of her status that Wilson would go public with an assignment that he obtained with the documented assistence of his wife. Meanwhile, logic dictates that the targets of his public proclaimation would undermine his proclaimed expertise by exposing that his wife, not his reputation alone, got him his assignment, regardless of the impact of this revelation on the wife.

4 comments:

Paul Hue said...

Another recent Hitchy post provides further reason to believe that Hussein sought nuclear weapons material from Niger:

http://www.slate.com/id/2139609/?nav=navoa

Why didn't the ballyhooed expert Joe Wilson consider any of this information in his various assessments?

Unknown said...

Joe Wilson is a f*cking liar.

Jonah Goldberg points out in his column today:

http://www.townhall.com/print/print_story.php?sid=194221&loc=/opinion/columns/jonahgoldberg/2006/04/19/194221.html

"The first is that Wilson was wrong and Bush was right (and the White House was foolish for saying otherwise). Britain's Butler Commission famously reinvestigated that allegation and found that it was "well-founded." France - no fan of the war or Bush - stood by the allegation as well. Journalist Christopher Hitchens and others have cataloged how Iraq had dispatched an envoy to Africa to inquire about acquiring uranium "yellowcake." Indeed, Wilson's own verbal report to the CIA confirmed to his debriefers that Iraq sought the stuff. But the press continues to call Wilson a "whistleblower," no doubt largely because Wilson's message is damaging to Bush and undercuts the rationale for the war.

The second truth is that there is nothing noble about Wilson's "whistleblower" schtick. These days, he slumps further and further into asininity, hurling insults at his critics. In one recent speech, detailed on the blog Daily Kos, Wilson said that the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol is a "drunk" and that he wants to punch America's ambassador to Iraq in the face. He even snidely insinuated that some prominent Republicans are closeted homosexuals. Even The New Republic's Jason Zengerle felt compelled to declare recently "Experts agree: Wilson's a pig."

What piece of human excrement Joe Wilson is.

Unknown said...

Oh, but wait, I forgot. Goldberg is a Jewish-American, Zionistic "Neo-Con". Guess we shouldn't trust his opinion.

Paul Hue said...

Joe Wilson & his wife have behaved preposterously and embarrassingly since they were able to portray the Bush counterpunch into an illegal "outing of a CIA agent".