Washington Post Whitewash

The Washington Post, that bastion of neoconservatism, is trying to spin the recent revelation that Richard Armitage was apparently the source of the Plame identity leak, into excusing away all the rest of the bad behavior of the Bush Administration. Once Plame's name was exposed, there is no question that Karl Rove and others ignored good sense, grabbed Plame's name, and conducted a ferocious media campaign to defame Joe Wilson. Even more importantly, Wilson's main point, that Iraq was not attempting to secure Niger yellowcake uranium, was never discredited. But the Washington Post lies away anyway:

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.

That statement is not true. His report did debunk uranium-shopping reports. Whether Wilson's report circulated to every echelon above him, who can say, but who else, then, was Wilson writing for, if not senior administration officials? That's what CIA reports are all about, after all.

Coupling those two phrases together constitutes deliberate deception on the part of the Washington Post. The Editors need to be body-slammed, and hard, for their lie.