Does the Washington Post Editorial Board Read the Washington Post ?

Many bloggers have suggested buying a subcription to the Wall Street Journal for the members of the Wall Street Journal's editorial board. They will have to reach down deeping into their pockets, because the Washington Post Editorial Board seems unable to keep up with news reported in the Washington Post.



From the Washington Post Editorial

At the same time, Mr. Rove and other administration officials had a legitimate interest in rebutting Mr. Wilson's inflated claims -- including the notion that he had been dispatched to Niger at Mr. Cheney's behest.

From the Washington Post's news Pages

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 12, 2003; Page A01

The CIA's decision to send an emissary to Niger was triggered by questions raised by an aide to Vice President Cheney during an agency briefing on intelligence circulating about the purported Iraqi efforts to acquire the uranium, according to the senior officials.

I dunno maybe Walter Pincus doesn't count, because, you know, he is a CIA loving pinko or something.

Now it is a bit hard to get information about Wilson's mission to Niger, because the web is full of information on the investiagation of the outing of Plame. Also, I'm not sure it helped to restrict my search to www.washingtonpost.com. In fact, I admit that it took me all of 12 minutes to find an article in the Washington Post which contradicts the absurd assertion in the Washington Post editorial (megablush 12 minutes and I wasn't even playing solitaire on the side). Finally finally I got the right search string (key key word "investigate" who would have thunk). I mean 12 whole minutes to find an article in the Washington Post which contradicts a vaguely slanderous claim in a Washington Post Editorial is disgraceful.

When wingnuts and the Washington Post Editorial board began raising doubts abut Cheney's role in the Mission to Niamey, I had the vague sence that it had been agreed long long ago that Cheney's office did indeed express curiousity about Nigerien Uranium and Iraq. Like the fact that Valerie Plame was covert, this was a point which had been agreed years ago. The agreement ceased to be operative when the anonymous leakers turned out to include Karl Rove.

I could have cheated and linked to this very much stronger evidence found by Digby (who also read the editorial so I didn't have to) but I decided that, to be fair to the Washington Post Editorial Board, I would just use google. Also meet the Press is such an obscure show, and the Vice Presidency is such and obscure office that you can't expect people to know what the Vice President said on Meet the Press.

Recall Wilson has only claimed that he was told at the CIA that the Vice President's office had expressed interest in learning more about Iraq and Nigerien Uranium. He never said or suggested that the Vice President had recommended him or even that the Vice President had suggested sending an unpaid volunteer or anything. In fact he specifically said that Cheney did not know he was in Niger (in the very interview edited by the RNC to make it seem that he was saying the exact opposite of what he said).

The editorial concludes by conflating "misconduct" with "crime". It is true that it is far from proven that Rove committed a crime, basically because it is not proven that he knew Plame was covert. He may have failed to check on that before talking about her to reporters. That would not be a crime, but it would be misconduct. If the distinction between "crime" and "misconduct" means anything at all, it is, because in cases like this, it is not clear that blatant misconduct constituted a crime.

I can think of two explanations. There are wing nuts on the board which, I guess, decides issues by compromise (as opposed to say voting on whether to write some nonsense they come up with). It is also possible that even non idiot non wing nuts on the board feel a need for balance and have to just forget what was written in their own paper when the facts are as grossly unfairly unbalances as they are in this case.