"It slandered Bush's motivations for invading Iraq, and has yet to be proven.
Iraq previously pursued purchase of yellow-cake uranium from Niger, attempted to develop weapons grade plutonium from a nuclear facility that Israel bombed to the ground to prevent, in 1981, and on and on.
And Britain and a considerable portion of the intelligence community says that Wilson is wrong, and the Niger intelligence is not incorrect, just not documented enought to warrant its inclusion in Bush's 1/28/2003 speech.

It slanders Bush as "lying" when Wilson's allegations can no more be proven than Bush's intelligence on Niger can be DISproven. "


I guess when I hear something is not documented enough I make the conclusion that it's shaky. Plus there is the whole matter of what happened after Wilson made his report. Did anybody in the administration read it prior the State of the Union? What exactly was Bush's intelligence on Niger besides Wilsons report?


Dave the Wonder Boy said:
"And then when it's disclosed who contracted Wilson by the CIA to check it out (his wife) then THAT (simply reporting the basis for Wilson's allegations, as opposed to Wilson's speculatively accusing the Bush administration of fabricating evidence to go to war, a notion which the Democrat-leaning media is eager to perpetuate, without evidence) is reported as treasonous betrayal of the intelligence community.
It may be a betrayal of intelligence, and it may not.
But since both sides of the story have not been told, I'm skeptical. And I think it's likely just another anti-Bush slander campaign, the latest in a three-year stream of such allegations. "


Actually from what has been said via Novack's column, Wilson's wife suggested him for the job. She didn't make the decision to send him & considering his credentials it hardly seems like an odd choice. Not sure what the other side of the story could be. The leakers are either idiots or doing a bit of payback plus they're idiots. Concerning presidential criticism, Pres. Bush has had it fairly easy criticism wise compared to Clinton. After 9/11 there was quite a bit of bipartisan support for President Bush. Besides Presidents are always criticized by the other party. It's silly to pretend this is a one sided phenomena.


Dave the Wonder Boy said:
"The Wall Street Journal doesn't have to list a source, any more than other articles that don't name names, and simply report from unrevealed sources.
Funny how you feel that anti-Bush articles don't need sources and conservative articles do. We're not talking about the Bloom County Picayune, this is the very respectable Wall Street Journal."

I never said anti-Bush articles don't need sources or that conservative articles do. If The Wall Street Journal is running an opinion piece in it's editorial section it doesn't need sources of course. I raise the question of sources because I'm curious if the editorial was purely opinion or if they did have some unnamed sources to back it up.


Dave the Wonder Boy said:
"There are too many questions that aren't asked, about Wilson's motivations, about the CIA agents bashing Bush and their motivations, and just how compromised Wilson's wife was by his OWN disclosure, before her name was revealed.
And also, Robert Novak, in confirming his story, could have chosen not to print her name.
And as public as Wilson's trip to Niger is, I question whether his wife's name would not have been revealed anyway. "

Thanks to the leakers it's a bit of a moot point about her name eventually coming out. So far it looks to me like the CIA was protecting her identity. Even now the only info about her job & position are all from leaks. Except for the official CIA response.


Dave the Wonder Boy said:
quote:
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originally posted by Matter eater Man:
For somebody who likes to shout treason at the liberal boogie men I would think it would deeply disturb you too that this administration would resort to such dirty tactics.
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"This, from a guy who jumps on every last suggestion of wrongdoing against Bush, verbatim, before any investigation or further disclosure is made.
And again I refer you to the "Liberal Media" topic, for some hard stats on the ratio of conservative and liberal reporters. The statistics are in my favor, regarding liberal bias. "

True I'm not crazy about this President & have no problem criticising him. This is however about the leakers & what damage they may have done. I'm also not into any liberal versions of Rush Limbaugh type news (do any even exist?) If it's not balanced it's not really worth my time.

Thanks for the lengthy & well thought out response BTW