Thursday, July 15, 2004
Joe Wilson's credibility is shattered
The blogosphere and a few others have pointed out that Joe Wilson, who wrote a scathing op-ed piece in the New York Times last year over the Niger "yellowcake" kerfuffle, lied to or mislead the public about each of his key assertions. Which is ironic, because Wilson's article and subsequent media orgy was the main substance of the "Bush lied" assertions that we have had to swallow for the past year.
Tragically, I don't have time this morning to parse all the details for you. Fortunately, this morning's lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal shreds Wilson, echoing the dissection that has been racing around the blogosphere for five days. You can't find any coverage of the "Wilson lied" story in today's NYT, though, even though that paper started the story. You can find an indirect reference to the yellowake scandal in a box on page A6 that implcitly redeems Bush's "16 words," but as far as the Times is concerned Wilson's reputation remains intact. True, the paper ran a very oblique story yesterday that mentioned one instance of facts "contradicting" Wilson in the 12th paragraph, but there is no mention at all on the op-ed pages, where the Times had previously given Wilson his megaphone. Somebody call Daniel Okrent.
Tragically, I don't have time this morning to parse all the details for you. Fortunately, this morning's lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal shreds Wilson, echoing the dissection that has been racing around the blogosphere for five days. You can't find any coverage of the "Wilson lied" story in today's NYT, though, even though that paper started the story. You can find an indirect reference to the yellowake scandal in a box on page A6 that implcitly redeems Bush's "16 words," but as far as the Times is concerned Wilson's reputation remains intact. True, the paper ran a very oblique story yesterday that mentioned one instance of facts "contradicting" Wilson in the 12th paragraph, but there is no mention at all on the op-ed pages, where the Times had previously given Wilson his megaphone. Somebody call Daniel Okrent.
0 Comments:
