the repubbbs had a pretty successful barrage of squawking points yesterday. one of the most outrageous arguments they made involved the almost-successful elimination of cause and effect from joe wilson's cnn interview.
joe said "my wife was not a clandestine officer the day bob novak blew her identity."
as media matters reports, the asspress (yes, they're back to asspress now, after this stunt) and others swallowed the gop falsity that wilson was admitting his wife was no longer covert at the time novak named her, when in fact he was attributing a causual relationship to her identity outing from novak's action . we explain after the jump:
in a july 15 article reporting new details in the ongoing criminal investigation into the leak of cia officer valerie plame's identity, the associated press distorted a remark by former ambassador joseph c. wilson iv to falsely report that wilson "acknowledged his wife [plame] was no longer in an undercover job at the time novak's column first identified her." in fact, wilson merely emphasized that his wife's cover was blown at the moment when columnist robert d. novak revealed her identity in a july 2003 column.
it's rather like if the repubbbs stated "hey, don mclean said himself there was no music long before buddy holly crashed in that plane!"
uh, that levy's dry, guys. the music died because buddy crashed. get it? one thing happened, causing the other.
but this brings us to our point: and this, stay on it. point, that is.
don't let the repubbbs throw us off the scent with their smoke and their mirrors. remember what jon stewart told michael isikoff:
it seems to me that whether or not this is a crime is a moot point. it seems to me that whether or not what karl rove was doing is a moot point. what seems like the real issue to this is simple: when it first came out that her name was released and people started wondering, 'was that a leak of a cia operative?' the white house pretended they didn't know anything about it. and karl rove pretended he didn't know anything about it. to me that is so far, the only issue.
(transcript courtesy of
the globalizer's dkos diary )
jon is right. the only issue is, in other words, rove lied. he lied about a lie. he lied about lying about a lie.
keep hammering that home, folks!
if ties in oh so well with the rest of this administration's motiff: lies.
weapons of mass destruction? lies.
iraq behind 9/11? lies.
saudis were not secretly flown out of the country after sept. 11? lies.
tax cuts for the wealthy will help the economy? lies.
iraqi's will welcome us with open arms? lies.
the insurgency is in its last throes? lies.
john kerry is a war-time coward? lies.
awol likes to milk horses?
well, 7 out of 8 ain't bad.