Wilson's Attorney Smacks Down Dallas Morning News
Thu Jul 21, 2005 at 11:53:02 AM PDT
In the Wednesday, July 20, 2005 edition of the Dallas Morning News, our local sages printed an absolutely
odious editorial. So many mis-statements of facts were made that the copy seems to have come directly from the RNC:
"...no evidence has emerged that Mr. Rove committed a criminal offense by warning journalists of the potentially nepotistic role CIA employee Valerie Plame played in recommending her husband, Bush critic Joseph Wilson, to head a trip to Niger...
This sorry apology piece for Karl Rove is inaccurate all the way through. But it gets worse.
~~~Continued after the fold....
In fact, there is substantial evidence that Rove was ONE of the leakers and that it may be a criminal offense. In fact, new reports seem to show Rove may have LIED to FBI interviews early in the investigation, which is ANOTHER Crime! And, using "nepotistic role" to refer to the mentioning by a WMD Specialist to send a
FORMER DIPLOMAT to Africa and
National Security Council advisor on Africa on an African trip (Niger, specifically) to ask questions about WMDs is laughable.
Having engaged in slurring the name of a former U.S. Diplomat for President George H. W. Bush himself - and a diplomat who literally put his neck on the line confronting Saddam's threats to execute anyone helping Americans flee prior to Gulf War I, they simply shove one more foot into their mouth, and chew away!
"...it's hard to see why, aside from political motives, he's so outraged about his wife's exposure as a CIA employee when newspaper reports indicate that even her neighbors knew where she worked. "
Can you believe that? The Dallas Morning News did not even Fact Check before repeating freeper talking points! Of course, you say. That is to be expected in Texas. Fortunately, this editorial board is usually a little more intelligent that this trash piece makes them out to be.
And then, the DMN editorial takes the deep plunge into fantasy land, where it is no big deal to go about revealing covert agents:
At this point, it's not at all clear that Karl Rove or anybody else should be fired over their role in
a relatively minor incident. But it is embarrassingly obvious that Mr. Bush and his team are engaging in lawyerly evasions that sound, well, Clintonian.
The Rove Affair has no apparent legs as a criminal or national security scandal, but as a political mess, the administration's own past positions are turning this thing into a marathon that distracts a nation from its real business.
Can't you just see these loons sitting around that big oak table, fingers in their ears, going "la-la-la-la-la-la"??? But, folks, they are not just IGNORING the importance of the issue, they are DISMISSING IT! Now official: Dallas Morning News declares that revealing the ID of US covert agents is a "relatively minor incident."
Honestly, I was thunderstruck! Who was the moron who wrote this!?
Today, the error of their ways is brought to light by none other than Mr. & Mrs. Joseph Wilson's attorney in the first Letter to the Editor:
Neighbors didn't know
Re: "The Rove Affair - Fast-talk is hurting White House's credibility," yesterday's Editorials.
You wrote: "Moreover, it's hard to see why, aside from political motives, [Ambassador Joseph Wilson] is so outraged about his wife's exposure as a CIA employee when newspaper reports indicate that even her neighbors knew where she worked."
Whatever newspaper reports you are relying upon are wrong. The only such report I can find is an unsubstantiated and incorrect reference in a Washington Times editorial. As both the lawyer for and neighbor of Joe Wilson and Valerie Wilson, I can state without qualification that no neighbors were aware of where she worked or what she did before the Robert Novak column in July 2003 "outing" her.
There you have it. Proof the Dallas Morning News relies upon fictional news in writing their editorials and forming their opinions.
But, was running a Editorial Board statement enough? Oh no. They ran a column by Mark Davis, local talk radio host and conservative water-carrier, stating that Wilson was nothing more than a "political hack":
"What in the world was Joseph Wilson doing in Niger in the first place? Did no one's alarms go off that he was a political hack with no experience evaluating evidence of weapons transactions?
Mark Davis denies that Rove possibly did anything wrong:
The dark motives attached to Mr. Rove's chats with reporters are wholly without basis. But the smear artists know they have traction in light of the president's unwise claim that leakers would be fired.
Well, Mark, if you would read the news, maybe you'd KNOW that Wilson was a long time foreign service employee. That he served for both G.H.W Bush and Clinton as a valued advisor and diplomat. You would know that Wilson had many African contacts. You would know that a Wilson trip to Africa would not arouse suspicions like some complete stranger, oh say, Richard Perle.
Think about it, Mark. If a complete stranger comes to your door and starts asking all sorts of personal family questions, you'd be pretty suspicious, wouldn't you? No, if I wanted to know more about what sort of yellowcakes you were selling out of your kitchen bakery, I wouldn't come to your door myself. I'd send a friend, an acquaintance, someone you had dinner with before. Someone for whom you'd open the door and invite into your house. Someone you'd freely converse with. Someone like a Former Diplomat that you already know! THAT is why Joseph Wilson was sent to Niger.
Let me end with the words of the Wilsons' attorney and a call for complaints to the Dallas Morning News and Mark Davis:
Your suggestion that Mr. Wilson's only motivation is political is simply wrong. His outrage is justified, truly motivated, and not by politics. Your editorial was unfair and based on a specious rumor.
Christopher Wolf, counsel for Ambassador and Mrs. Joseph Wilson, Washington
This false, rumor-mongering, bad-fact-using hatchet job by the Dallas Morning News deserves rebuke. Contact them at:
mdavis@wbap.com (Mark Davis)
letterstoeditor@dallasnews.com
kwilley@dallasnews.com (Keven Ann Willey, she is
Vice President and Editor of the editorial page)
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