This has been bugging me: No one asked, "Who's Joe Wilson?"

[displacedtexan]

Don't you find it strange that everyone has been concerned with whether or not Wilson's wife was named, outed, covert, super secret status, etc., but everyone involved with this investigation (those questioned) supposedly knew all about Ambassador Wilson... even before he published his NYT op ed?

I don't believe that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV was a household name (even in DC) before his op ed.

I spent an entire day sitting next to Wilson the Wednesday before his op ed was published (at a DC forum), and no one there (major media types, Coleen Rowley, etc.) acted like they'd ever heard of him.

Yet, weeks before that, Judith Miller didn't ask who he was.

Hm.

[Dhalgren]

1. Good observation...Makes one pause, no?

[RJRoss]

2. BushBots would say

"Everybody knew Joe Wilson from the Beltway cocktail party circle, where he flaunted his pretty new wife and told them all she was a secretary at the CIA."

[AntiCoup2K4]

3. Wilson is often referred to as "Ambassador"

The title was given to him by a certain Chimp's father. Poppy also called Joe Wilson a "hero". Those two facts alone prove he's no "librul Bush hater" as the Freeps and Sheeps have been led to believe. And since most of Poppy's friends and associates come from the same place he did, I'd guess that Joe met his wife at work.

Judith Miller probably didn't have to ask because it's quite possible she came from that same "employment agency" as well.

[AlGore-08.com]

4. He gave a lot of "background" interviews to the press

For at least two months prior to writing his 7/3/03 op-ed, so the beltway press all knew who he was.

The DailyHowler has done a number of stories about what Wilson said on background.

[mmonk]

5. The admin is very familiar with him

and needed no introduction since some of this administration was in office during the run-up to Gulf War 1 when he was Ambassador and confronted Hussein and also kept in regular contact with Bush I during operations leading up to Desert Storm.