Why the Media Can't Stop Smearing Joe Wilson

By Robert Parry, Consortium News. Posted September 4, 2006.

In the movie “Shawshank Redemption,” the wrongly convicted Andy Dufrense (Tim Robbins) gets frustrated when the corrupt prison warden blocks Dufrense’s chance to prove his innocence. “How can you be so obtuse?” Dufrense asks.

The same question could be addressed today to Washington journalists who are falling over themselves to absolve George W. Bush’s White House of any serious wrongdoing in the three-year-old assault on former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson and the outing of his CIA officer wife, Valerie Plame.

This new backlash against those who challenged the White House on the Plame case follows disclosure that one of the sources for Robert Novak’s July 14, 2003, column, which blew Plame’s cover, was Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who was not considered a close White House ally.

In a Sept. 2 front-page story, the New York Times reacted to this news by suggesting that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had been overzealous in pursuing the Plame investigation for more than two years, since Armitage had testified early on that he apparently was Novak’s principal source on Plame. [NYT, Sept. 2, 2006]

The Times article came on the heels of a scathing editorial by the Washington Post putting the primary blame for the exposure of Plame on her husband, Joseph Wilson, because in July 2003, he went public with the findings of his 2002 CIA-organized trip to Niger which helped debunk the false pre-Iraq War claim that Iraq had sought yellowcake uranium from Africa.

“He [Wilson] ought to have expected that both those [Bush administration] officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife,” the Post editorial said.

The Post also argued that since Armitage was a reluctant supporter of the Iraq War, “it follows that one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House – that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame’s identity – is untrue.” [Washington Post, Sept. 1, 2006]

How Obtuse?

But – as with the corrupt prison warden in “Shawshank Redemption” – it’s hard to believe that national journalists could be this obtuse.

As we explain below, the evidence is overwhelming that the White House assault on Wilson was planned weeks before he published an Op-Ed on July 6, 2003, accusing Bush of twisting the yellowcake claim – and that Bush’s operatives responded by pointing journalists toward Plame’s identity.

Indeed, the available evidence doesn’t even fully support the contention that Novak first learned about Plame from his interview with Armitage on July 8, 2003. According to the Times’ own reporting, Novak apparently had been primed to ask a question on this topic.

The Times buries this crucial point in its Sept. 2 story that questions whether Fitzgerald “properly exercised his prosecutorial discretion.” In the last sentence of the 17th paragraph, the Times reports that Armitage disclosed Plame’s possible role in arranging Wilson’s Niger trip “in reply to a question.”

In other words, Armitage didn’t just toss out Plame’s CIA connection as “gossip,” as the Post editorial assumes. He apparently mentioned it in response to Novak’s question about how the Niger trip had been arranged, which begs the additional question of who might have suggested that Novak ask that.

The distinction is important because other evidence indicates that Bush’s aides were pushing reporters to ask about the circumstances behind the Niger trip, knowing that line of questioning would lead to Plame’s identity.

For instance, Time magazine correspondent John Dickerson, who accompanied a presidential trip to Africa shortly after Wilson’s article was published, said he was twice urged to pursue the seemingly insignificant question of who had been involved in arranging Wilson’s trip.

Revenge

As the President toured Africa in July 2003, questions about Wilson’s article dominated the trip, prompting White House spokesman Ari Fleischer to finally concede that the yellowcake allegation was “incorrect” and should not have been included in the State of the Union speech in January 2003.

The mistake represented one of the first times the Bush administration had retreated on any national security issue. Administration officials were embarrassed, livid and determined to punish Wilson.

Robert Parry's new book is Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq."

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