9.01.2006

Goodbye Joe Wilson

This Editorial from the Washington Post sufficiently brings to an end any curiosity I may have had about the whole "outing" of Valerie Plame. Actually, I've not been able to care for some time now, but obviously some people do, so to that end read on:

WE'RE RELUCTANT to return to the subject of former CIA employee Valerie Plame because of our oft-stated belief that far too much attention and debate in Washington has been devoted to her story and that of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, over the past three years. But all those who have opined on this affair ought to take note of the not-so-surprising disclosure that the primary source of the newspaper column in which Ms. Plame's cover as an agent was purportedly blown in 2003 was former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage.
...
Nevertheless, it 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.

If you're still interested, Christopher Hitchens has a similarly themed roundup of the absurdity that is/was the Wilson/Plame business.

1 comment:

Ben said...

I would agree that this Editorial is rather belated. Three years is a long time in the "news" and it's allowed the wrong impression to fester. What bothers me is that in my sense of journalism, an Editorial is meant to synthesize information that's out in the open into a coherent thought. This piece sort of does that, but it rings hollow. Aside from some folks like Hitchens, a thorough discrediting of this case hasn't happened. It seems odd that this Ed. is published only after a book about the same subject comes out. That books co-author, Michael Isikoff, also works for the Post via Newsweek.

Aside from that, I'm wondering why, exactly, the NYT article is an example of crap journalism. If I were to guess, it would be because it retreads the same rationale for this investigation that was hypothesized 3 years ago. I.e., Plame is the victim of White House pushback instead of being the victim of her husbands questionable reasoning skills. Beyond that, the NYT article makes many of the elements mentioned in the WaPo Editorial more clear, but without making the leap that Joe Wilson is an idiot. It would be ok to me if this leap was made in another article, but I'm annoyed that it isn't alluded to. Given what else appears in the article, it's reasonable to cast doubt on the guy.

I should re-iterate that I don't care about Joe Wilson, but I'm not convinced that this NYT article quite lives up to crap journalism (while others most certainly do).