Yup, that’s the right question.

Another head that should roll … or at least should be taken off the roll of conservatives… is Novak.

His original column served to embarrass and weaken America, and his silence further serves toward the same end. He’s a veteran insider, so he knows how these things work. This can’t be treated as a beginner’s error.

Also, he hasn’t been fired from his syndicate or from CNN, which tells me for certain that his intentions are dishonorable, and tells me that the leaker is anti-Bush.

If the leak, and Novak’s actions, were intended to protect the Bush administration, he would have been fired in a nanosecond by newspapers and CNN. Whistle blowers are only treated as heroes when they damage America.

Was there anything in what Wilson said about the Niger/Iraq yellowcake connection that wasn’t true? Would a more GOP-friendly appointee have come to another conclusion? I thought Bush was a man out for the truth. I guess the only difference might be that Wilson called Bush on the veracity of his claim, but a more GOP-friendly appointee might have clammed up - truth be damned.

I agree if someone in the administration hired wilson they should be removed. Though i think this is been misreported. The reports they VP Cheney requested his hire is not true. He has said he asked the CIA about the Niger info though did not request someone go there. The CIA in house decided to send someone there and Wilson was hired by the CIA. The fact is many if not most in the CIA and State are not Bush people abd hate his policies. THey would gladly hire a leftist crank.

To Joseph Wilson:

“Your courageous leadership during this period of great danger for American interests and American citizens has my admiration and respect. I salute, too, your skillful conduct of our tense dealings with the government of Iraq. The courage and tenacity you have exhibited throughout this ordeal prove that you are the right person for the job.”

http://www.counterpunch.org/goodman09302003.html

More spin needed, guys.

Sounds like the kind of language written in the stuff I get from the White House, just for having recently been an officer in my local Republican Party organization.

Jimmy,

regardless of what Niger was doing, what Bush said hasn’t been contradicted. British military said that Iraq tried to buy uranium from an African nation, and they are still saying that. So, where did Bush lie?

I don’t understand the Niger “16-word” brouhaha. Bush was quoting a British report and said so. The British stand by their intelligence on the matter.

And there is a problem in the Bush Administration’s hiring someone like Wilson for the Niger mission. It is not the mere fact of Wilson’s not being in the same political camp as Bush that should raise concern. However, hiring someone with Wilson’s record of belligerance towards the Administration should.

That said, I must disagree with the “headline” of this post. The real scandal is the felonious outing of an operative. Sorry. Denying the seriousness of the charge by muddying the water with other issues hurts your credibility. If this woman’s identity was leaked and the information was classified, heads need to roll. And if it brings down the Administration as a result, so be it.

This is a bit worse than a guy perjuring himself over an affair with an intern.

My take on this has been one of skepticism, mostly because of the left’s proven track record for looking for a scandal under every Bush administration member’s bed, and not finding any, but making lots of damaging noise anyway. It’s like the old story about crying wolf—you do it often enough and pretty soon no one believes you. The administration’s accusers have been leveling charge after charge—that he knew about or even planned 9-11, that he ordered Flight 93 shot down and then covered it up, that he ran from the danger that day, that he helped Enron, the infamous 16 words, etc etc—to the point that I largely tune them out when they trump up some new scandal. They have yet to be right about anything, so why should I expect the latest one to be any different.

As to the leak—how, exactly, does outing Plame help the administration? If anything, knowing that she’s a WMD expert lends a bit of credibility to Wilson, who sorely needs it. Who investigates a serious charge such as the Iraq/Niger nuke deal by sitting next to a pool sipping tea? Joe Wilson, that’s who, by his own admission (that should be a scandal too, imho—this guy is a rank amateur when it comes to chasing down sensitive intel). His “investigation” just doesn’t sound serious at all, and only the most credulous person would conclude from it that there were no Iraqi feelers for uranium in Niger. In fact, Wilson himself put so much stock in his findings that he never even filed an official report. And further, he only determined (with no apparent evidence apart from the word of unnamed Nigerian officials—none are on record as having even met with him) that Iraq never bought any uranium from Niger—not that they never tried to buy any, which is the Bush “16 words” allegation—an attempt to buy, not a purchase.

Knowing that Wilson is married to a CIA WMD expert lends him a bit of credibility. How this helps the administration isn’t clear to me at all. If there was a leak, which is still an if in my mind given what Novak has written, it was a spectacularly stupid act if it was designed to help the administration. And it may not have been meant to help the administration at all.