Philly Inkie on Libby Trial: Not State, Not CIA - but Admin that lied

[Captain Hilts]

It's by Trudy Rubin, who is very good:

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/columnists/trudy_rubin/16670715.htm

...

But Wilson found no evidence of such a sale, nor did the U.S. Embassy in Niger. And from the beginning, CIA analysts doubted the story. The State Department's intelligence arm, which saw the foreign documents that had provoked the story, considered them to be blatant fakes.

And yet the story wouldn't die. Despite the fact that CIA Director George Tenet personally got President Bush to remove a reference to Niger uranium in a 2002 speech, the tale lived on. The reason: relentless White House efforts to promote the story and relentless White House pressure on the CIA to confirm it. Dissenters in the intelligence community were brushed aside.

Bush made the Niger claim a centerpiece of his 2003 State of the Union speech to justify the coming war, citing British intelligence as the source. (The British intel was apparently based on the same set of fake foreign documents.)

...

The difference this time is that the intelligence community is holding firm against promoting claims that aren't fully backed up with reliable data. A new intelligence estimate on Iraq downplays the overall significance of Iranian interference there.
The Libby trial is a salutary reminder that the same leaders who cherry-picked Iraq intelligence are still in the White House. The Niger charge was patently false, yet Bush, Cheney - and Libby - promoted it. Perhaps they auto-hypnotized themselves into believing it. Hopefully, they can't hypnotize the country again.

[global1]

1. Fool Me Once - Shame On Me.........nt

[keith the dem]

2. Trudy Rubin should be linked here more often

Every one of her columns from the the lead up to the war till now have been correct. She is the only regular columnist left at the Inquirer with any credibility.

I don't understand how so many RW columnists/pundits still have their jobs. They have been 100% wrong on almost everything. People complain about weathermen getting paid when they are wrong so often. It seems to me that RW pundits have been wrong much more often and get paid much more.

[Captain Hilts]

3. Rubin's really good. I never miss her column. Good to see her on MacNeil-Lehrer.

How many of the major columnists have actually spent extended periods of time in the countries they are writing about?

Rubin and Kristoff are the only two I can think of. The rest are writing columns to help themselves get invited to the right parties.

[T Wolf]

4. cancelled our decades-old subscription to the Inqy after the wingnuts

bought it. Have not missed it.

It has turned even more right-wing, adding hate-radio host Smirk as a columnist. Rubin is the only writer they have who is even DLC-approved. Totally out-balanced by Goldberg, Krauthammer, and the rest.

Their idea of balance is that, in a city overwhelmingly Democratic, in an area that has gone for Dems more and more recently, they now have MORE con letters (close to 50-50) to present both sides even though they must receive many more letters from us evil liberals.

Fuck them and what they have done to a great newspaper.