Need DU help, response to puke Trib. Wilson editorial

[never cry wolf]

Good Morning DUers.

My own local repuke rag, the Chicago Tribune printed the following as their lead editorial. It's a disgusting slam on Amb. Wilson complete with all the RNC talking points.

Since I actually have alot of work to do the next few days, I am requesting DUers to take on responding to this piece of crap, either by writing a response directly to the trib at this email address: [e-mail] or by posting ideas here for others to write in. Let's swamp these guys.

Here's the editorial (free registration required):

Joseph Wilson revisited

Published July 21, 2004

In July of 2003, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson went public with a sensational charge: The Bush administration had "manipulated intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq." At issue was 16 words in President Bush's State of the Union address the previous January, asserting that Iraq had sought to buy "significant quantities" of uranium from Africa, later narrowed to the nation of Niger.

Wilson said he'd gone to Niger at the behest of the CIA to investigate that claim and found it to be "highly doubtful." Even though Bush had cited the British government as the source for the assertion in his speech, that didn't matter much in the bitter atmosphere that followed.

snip-----------------

There's another reason to question Wilson's veracity. Wilson said his wife, who worked for the CIA at the time, had no role in sending him on the Niger assignment. But the Senate committee report says she suggested his name for the trip and sent a memo to her boss that said "my husband has good relations" with Niger officials and "lots of French contacts."

Then, according to the report, she "approached her husband on behalf of the CIA and told him `there's this crazy report' on a purported deal for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq."

That doesn't sound like Wilson went to Niger to find the truth. That sounds like he and his wife had an agenda and she pushed to get him the Niger assignment so he could prove their preconception of the truth.

Wilson is now countering those reports with explanations that ring hollow.

more----> http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0407210175jul21,1,326350.story?coll=chi-newsopinion-hed

[Rainbowreflect]

1. It's funny how they know about a private conversation

between a husband & wife, but don't know who leaked a CIA agent's name.