Comparing today’s Washington Post’s reporting on page A01 with its editorial on page B06, we find several slight inconsistencies.
The editorial writers at the Washington Post must be smoking some amazingly strong stuff.
It obviously disable them from reading their own paper. But then it does induce some high quality hallucinations.
PRESIDENT BUSH was right to approve the declassification of parts of a National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq three years ago in order to make clear why he had believed that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons. Presidents are authorized to declassify sensitive material, and the public benefits when they do.
A Good Leak;
Washington Post Editorial; Sunday, April 9, 2006; Page B06
As he drew back the curtain this week on the evidence against Vice President Cheney’s former top aide, Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald for the first time described a "concerted action" by "multiple people in the White House" — using classified information — to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" a critic of President Bush’s war in Iraq.
A ‘Concerted Effort’ to Discredit Bush Critic;
Washington Post Report by Staff Writers; Sunday, April 9, 2006; Page A01
The material that Mr. Bush ordered declassified established, as have several subsequent investigations, that Mr. Wilson was the one guilty of twisting the truth. In fact, his report supported the conclusion that Iraq had sought uranium.
A Good Leak;
Washington Post Editorial; Sunday, April 9, 2006; Page B06
Cheney, in a conversation with Libby in early July 2003, was said to describe Wilson’s CIA-sponsored trip to Niger the previous year — in which the envoy found no support for charges that Iraq tried to buy uranium there — as "a junket set up by Mr. Wilson’s wife," CIA case officer Valerie Plame.
A ‘Concerted Effort’ to Discredit Bush Critic;
Washington Post Report by Staff Writers; Sunday, April 9, 2006; Page A01
Mr. Wilson subsequently claimed that the White House set out to punish him for his supposed whistle-blowing by deliberately blowing the cover of his wife, Valerie Plame, who he said was an undercover CIA operative. This prompted the investigation by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald. After more than 2 1/2 years of investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald has reported no evidence to support Mr. Wilson’s charge.
A Good Leak;
Washington Post Editorial; Sunday, April 9, 2006; Page B06
Fitzgerald said the grand jury has collected so much testimony and so many documents that "it is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to ‘punish’ Wilson."
A ‘Concerted Effort’ to Discredit Bush Critic;
Washington Post Report by Staff Writers; Sunday, April 9, 2006; Page A01
As Mr. Fitzgerald pointed out at the time of Mr. Libby’s indictment last fall, none of this is particularly relevant to the question of whether the grounds for war in Iraq were sound or bogus. It’s unfortunate that those who seek to prove the latter would now claim that Mr. Bush did something wrong by releasing for public review some of the intelligence he used in making his most momentous decision.
A Good Leak;
Washington Post Editorial; Sunday, April 9, 2006; Page B06
One striking feature of that decision — unremarked until now, in part because Fitzgerald did not mention it — is that the evidence Cheney and Libby selected to share with reporters had been disproved months before.
A ‘Concerted Effort’ to Discredit Bush Critic;
Washington Post Report by Staff Writers; Sunday, April 9, 2006; Page A01
Presidents are authorized to declassify sensitive material, and the public benefits when they do.
A Good Leak;
Washington Post Editorial; Sunday, April 9, 2006; Page B06
The [National Intelligence] Council’s reply, drafted in a January 2003 memo by the national intelligence officer for Africa, was unequivocal: The Niger story was
baseless and should be laid to rest. Four U.S. officials with firsthand
knowledge said in interviews that the memo, which has not been reported
before, arrived at the White House as Bush and his highest-ranking
advisers made the uranium story a centerpiece of their case for the
rapidly approaching war against Iraq.
A ‘Concerted Effort’ to Discredit Bush Critic;
Washington Post Report by Staff Writers; Sunday, April 9, 2006; Page A01
Smoking amazingly strong stuff … "and the public benefits when they do".