Yellowgate.
You’ve probably seen the transcript of Ari Fleischer’s mistakes-were-made-on-first performance yesterday. Josh Marshall sums it up nicely enough—
But let’s look at what the White House is saying. In essence, they’re saying that the Niger documents were forgeries. But then, we already knew that. Indeed, the White House has conceded this for months. Sometimes publicly; sometimes privately. Here’s what they’re saying now, according to the Post: “Knowing all that we know now the reference to Iraq’s attempt to acquire uranium from Africa should not have been included in the State of the Union speech.”
But, of course, the real issue is that there is at least very strong circumstantial evidence that knowing what they knew then, the uranium hokum never should have been put into the speech either. This is a classic case of trying to jump out ahead of a story by conceding a point that no one is actually disputing in the first place.
Add to that (as noted by Calpundit and MetaFilter) this little piece of rhetorical dynamite—
An intelligence consultant who was present at two White House briefings where the uranium report was discussed confirmed that the President was told the intelligence was questionable and that his national security advisors urged him not to include the claim in his State of the Union address.
“The report had already been discredited,” said Terrance J. Wilkinson, a CIA advisor present at two White House briefings. “This point was clearly made when the President was in the room during at least two of the briefings.”
Bush’s response was anger, Wilkinson said.
“He said that if the current operatives working for the CIA couldn’t prove the story was true, then the agency had better find some who could,” Wilkinson said. “He said he knew the story was true and so would the world after American troops secured the country.”
This comes to us courtesy Capitol Hill Blue, a mostly libertarian political news site founded in 1994 (the oldest political news site on the web, they claim) by Doug Thompson. Capitol Hill Blue, while unabashedly right-wing on many social issues, is mostly known for taking on Congress—its series on “The Criminal Class” is something of a classic in the field—and Thompson is the sort of libertarian whose principles take him off the standard right-wing reservation from time to time.
Skepticism is the watch-word for the moment; very few people are all that familiar with Capitol Hill Blue, after all, and they do have more than a whiff of the tabloid about them, and anyway, nothing’s coming up on a Google for “Terrance J. Wilkinson.” (Not damning in and of itself, mind.) And this is red meat, here; this would be the linchpin—grenade pin?—for mainstream consideration of the “Bush lied people died” meme. —On the other hand, their source is named—which is far more than you can say about a lot of recent reporting from the New York Times, et al—and Doug Thompson is actively backing up his story in Blue’s comments boards. It should be a simple enough matter for the press corps to track Mr. Wilkinson down and confirm (or deny) this report of blood in the water.
Right?
Actually, I’m going to throw my meager weight behind “The Yellow Cake Scandal.” It’s nice and Teapot-Domey.
There has been, as they say, a development.
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It should be a simple enough matter for the press corps to track Mr. Wilkinson down and confirm (or deny) this report of blood in the water.
Right?
Assuming the press corps is paying enough attention. But that also assumes a level of social responsibility that the American media has difficulty maintaining for longer than a Dateline special or a 60 Minutes report. If Ari Fleischer had drowned his pregnant wife and lied to his mistress, then you would see the intensity of coverage that is really due this issue.
The story has been referred to all the major networks, as well as CNN and the New York Times. If there's anything to it, I imagine we'll hear about it...
There seems to be a lot of news the major outlets aren't seriously covering, despite there being something to it.