Big Lizards:Blog:Entry “The First Step of Recovery From BDS...”

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September 1, 2006

The First Step of Recovery From BDS...

Hatched by Dafydd

...Is to admit you have a problem. And danged if the Washington Post hasn't done just exactly that and even begun to grope towards mental health.

The article, End of an Affair -- I can't find out exactly what section it's in, though it appears to be just a regular article, not an opinion piece -- takes note that the original leaker of Valerie Plame's not-so-covert name turns out to have been Richard Armitage, not Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, or Karl Rove.

[Commenter Dan Kauffman notes that it appears to be an editorial. That's fine; I only meant it wasn't an outside opinion piece by somebody other than the Washington Post!]

Mr. Armitage was one of the Bush administration officials who supported the invasion of Iraq only reluctantly. He was a political rival of the White House and Pentagon officials who championed the war and whom Mr. Wilson accused of twisting intelligence about Iraq and then plotting to destroy him.

Like his boss, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Armitage is firmly in the anti-Bush camp of the State Department and would be more likely to leak to attack Bush over the Iraq war than do anything to further it.

So noting, the nation's premier political newspaper, which is notoriously left-leaning (though not as discreditably so as the New York Times, which has become a sick joke), now admits that the entire Joe-Wilson fantasy was just a fever dream:

It follows that one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House -- that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame's identity to ruin her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson -- is untrue. The partisan clamor that followed the raising of that allegation by Mr. Wilson in the summer of 2003 led to the appointment of a special prosecutor, a costly and prolonged investigation, and the indictment of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on charges of perjury. All of that might have been avoided had Mr. Armitage's identity been known three years ago.

While noting that Cheney and Libby are "not blameless," the worst the WaPo can find to charge them with is essentially mopery with intent to gawk: they sought to discredit Wilson's lying claims.

But isn't that yet another staggering admission? This just keeps getting better and better:

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 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.

Including, of course, the Washington Post, though they fail to mention that part. But as a first step, this one has been magnificent.

Will it "take?" Will others in the elite media take their cue and admit that their own anti-Bush sickness, their Bush Derangement Syndrome, left them with a weakened idiocy-immune system and all too willing to believe any charge of evil leveled at the president and his White House?

Will the New York Times admit its own contagion? How about the TV networks, including cable weaklings CNN and MSNBC? Will Keith Olbermann go on a rant against Lyin' Joe Wilson and his nepotistic wife? Will some failed Democratic hack, who was forced to withdraw from a Senate race for being too nutty even for Howard Dean, ever refer to "Unterführer of Propaganda" Joseph Wilson?

Somehow I doubt it. But with this first crack in the dry ice of liberal confabulation, who knows? Maybe someday, in his dotage, Howard Dean will even admit that maybe he was wrong... for once.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, September 1, 2006, at the time of 1:09 PM

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Comments

The following hissed in response by: Socratease

"[M]opery with intent to gawk"? I guess that's not as serious as shucking with intent to jive.

The above hissed in response by: Socratease at September 1, 2006 1:27 PM

The following hissed in response by: great unknown

I wonder if the WaPo editorial board is finally waking up and realizing that the danger to them - let alone to the rest of the country - from Soros and the Kosites (sounds like a sixties rock band) outweighs any social benefits of bashing Bush.

The above hissed in response by: great unknown at September 1, 2006 1:48 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dan Kauffman

I can't find out exactly what section it's in, though it appears to be just a regular article, not an opinion piece

Looks like an editorial

washingtonpost.com > Print Edition > Editorial Pages

End of an Affair
It turns out that the person who exposed CIA agent Valerie Plame was not out to punish her husband

The above hissed in response by: Dan Kauffman at September 1, 2006 2:56 PM

The following hissed in response by: k2aggie07

agreed; sentiments echoed at my blog

The above hissed in response by: k2aggie07 at September 1, 2006 3:44 PM

The following hissed in response by: Terrye

They should be ashamed of themselves. All of them. We have men and women in harm's way and all these morons can think to do is cause trouble.

The above hissed in response by: Terrye at September 1, 2006 5:04 PM

The following hissed in response by: Bill Faith

Excerpted and linked at Old War Dogs >> Bill's Bites.

The above hissed in response by: Bill Faith at September 2, 2006 12:43 PM

The following hissed in response by: Big D

I have an friend, a University professor, who recently admitted that, ahem, what if Bush was right? What if these jihadis really truly mean business? He said this to me, almost conspiratorially.

It was the last terror bust that seemed to change his mind.

I don't think the healing will be complete until Bush is gone. Ideally we would have a centrist or conservative Democrat take his place. But those are becoming few and far between.

The above hissed in response by: Big D at September 5, 2006 11:03 AM