The gentle cleansing of ***** Cheney's reputation wasn't the only
example of the Washington Post carrying water for the Bush
administration last week.
Following revelations that George W. Bush lied about his knowledge of
the leaking - I'm sorry, "disclosure" - of a classified National
Intelligence Estimate in 2003, the Post ran an editorial titled "A
Good Leak."
Excuse me?
"President Bush was right to approve the declassification of parts of
a National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq three years ago in order
to make clear why he had believed that Saddam Hussein was seeking
nuclear weapons," read the editorial.
"But the administration handled the release clumsily, exposing Mr.
Bush to the hyperbolic charges of misconduct and hypocrisy that
Democrats are leveling."
Handled the release clumsily?
That's an understatement.
And it still doesn't explain why Bush went on and on about hunting
down the leakers when he was involved from day one.
But the most curious thing about the Post's editorial is that it
contained statements which directly contradicted a report on the
Post's front page that very same day.
Thanks to DUer "Sparkly" we can quickly compare portions of the
editorial
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/08/AR2006040800895.html
and the front page article.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/08/AR2006040800916_2.html
See if you can spot the discrepancies...
EDITORIAL:
Vice President Cheney initially chose to be secretive, ordering his
chief of staff at the time, I. Lewis Libby, to leak the information to
a favorite New York Times reporter.
ARTICLE:
The first of those conversations, according to the evidence made known
thus far, came when Libby met with Bob Woodward, an assistant managing
editor of The Washington Post, on June 27, 2003.
EDITORIAL:
In fact, (Joseph Wilson's) report supported the conclusion that Iraq
had sought uranium.
ARTICLE:
Cheney, in a conversation with Libby in early July 2003, was said to
describe Wilson's CIA-sponsored trip to Niger the previous year - in
which the envoy found no support for charges that Iraq tried to buy
uranium there - as "a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife," CIA case
officer Valerie Plame.
EDITORIAL:
After more than 2 1/2 years of investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald has
reported no evidence to support Mr. Wilson's charge.
ARTICLE:
Fitzgerald said the grand jury has collected so much testimony and so
many documents that "it is hard to conceive of what evidence there
could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to
'punish' Wilson."
And so on.
Editor & Publisher's Greg Mitchell has an in-depth report on the
Post's editorial screw-up here which is well worth reading.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002314409
From Democratic Underground
http://www.democraticunderground.com/
Harry
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