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Audacity of Truth
Gaffetastic:
Vice President Joe Biden had his “oops” moment Wednesday speaking in a 49er-crazed SF when he told a crowd at a city political fundraiser that “the Giants are on their way to the Super Bowl.” - SF Chronicle, 1-18-12
Fitzgerald issues a correction
Via Byron York at NRO:
An embarrassing move this afternoon from CIA leak prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. In his now-famous court filing in which he said that former Cheney chief of staff Lewis Libby testified that he had been authorized to leak portions of the then-classified National Intelligence Estimate, Fitzgerald wrote, “Defendant understood that he was to tell [New York Times reporter Judith] Miller, among other things, that a key judgment of the NIE held that Iraq was ‘vigorously trying to procure’ uranium.”
That sentence led a number of reporters and commentators to suggest that, beyond the issue of the leak itself, the administration was lying about the NIE, because the African uranium segment was not in fact among the NIE’s key judgments. For example, in a front page story on Sunday, the Washington Post reported:
At Cheney’s instruction, Libby testified, he told Miller that the uranium story was a “key judgment” of the intelligence estimate, a term of art indicating there was consensus on a question of central importance.
In fact, the alleged effort to buy uranium was not among the estimate’s key judgments, which were identified by a headline and bold type and set out in bullet form in the first five pages of the 96-page document.
A few hours ago, however, Fitzgerald sent a letter to judge Reggie Walton, asking to correct his filing. The letter reads:
We are writing to correct a sentence from the Government’s Response to Defendant’s Third Motion to Compel Discovery, filed on April 5, 2006. The sentence, which is the second sentence of the second paragraph on page 23, reads, ‘Defendant understood that he was to tell Miller, among other things, that a key judgment of the NIE held that Iraq was ‘vigorously trying to procure’ uranium.” That sentence should read, “Defendant understood that he was to tell Miller, among other things, some of the key judgments of the NIE, and that the NIE stated that Iraq was ‘vigorously trying to procure’ uranium.”
Here’s the direct link to the WaPo story on Fitz’s correction.
Hat tip: Stephen Spruiell, who adds:
Every story. Every story in which reporters picked up this mistaken sentence and used it to imply that Bush and Cheney told Libby to lie to the press — and that’s a lot of stories because, smelling blood, almost every major political reporter piled on — every story needs to have a correction appended for the historical record. It doesn’t matter that the reporters were given mistaken information, because this is the danger when you play games with semantics.
Even if Fitzgerald had never corrected the record, the reporting was wrong. The key judgments section of the NIE may not have included the specific words, “vigorously trying to procure uranium,” but they did include the sentence, “Although we assess that Saddam does not yet have nuclear weapons or sufficient material to make any, he remains intent on acquiring them,” and as Bob Somerby has pointed out, if “sufficient material” means “uranium,” then one of the key judgments was that Saddam was hellbent to get his hands on some.
But now that Fitzgerald has gone and made it official, let’s see some corrections. The Washington Post can start with this article. The New York Times can do this one. And Knight Ridder can start with this story, which might as well have Joseph Wilson as a co-byline.
Indeed.
- Prior ST posts on pLamegate
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I’m sorry, I don’t really see the difference as to whether this was a key element or not.
Surely the most important part of this is that Libby was leaking things, on Cheney’s instructions, that he knew not to be true.
And, if this information had indeed been declassified, why did Libby insist on speaking under anonymity?
And did Cheney and Bush tell Fitzgerald that the document had been declassified when he interviewed them?
And do you support the release of the transcripts of the Bush and Cheney interviews with Fitzgerald so we can establish once and for all whether or they have changed their story?
POW !!
Great post ST.
Corrections to false allegations don’t matter to lefties I see from the above post at 1:59. The whole matter revolves around Wilson’s false allegations that were trying to be corrected by the White House. I guess the press is simply able to freely make false allegations and there is no recourse for it. Libby isn’t even charged with what lefties think he is charged with but yet the above poster goes on as if it’s so. According to Victoria Toensing the law hasn’t been broken with respect to Plame.
This is a serious miscalculation by the press and they can’t jump off the wagon now in an election year. They needed to apologize and make corrections last year and are too far gone to do so now. There will be no corrections and lefties will continue to be at war with Bush and blast conservatives even though Bush isn’t even conservative and Bush’s 16 words in the State of the Unions speech remain true because British Intelligence has repeatedly backed up the claim.
Sorry Kel. Pick a new topic to be wrong on and visit again.
What false allegations do you imagine Wilson made? He said Saddam did not buy Uranium from Niger. As Niger’s Uranium is controlled by the French it was always a ludicrous proposition. Niger do not control access to their own Uranium, it’s leased out to France.
And you are wrong when you say British intelligence continue to back up Bush’s 16 words in the SOTU.
They most certainly do not. You should have read my blog more thoroughly on your visit. You would have found this:
The Bush administration and British Prime Minister Tony Blair maintained they had additional, secret evidence they could not disclose. In June, a British parliamentary inquiry concluded otherwise, delivering a scathing critique of Blair’s role in promoting the story.
“http://the-osterley-times.blogspot.com
/2006/04/theres-liar-in-white-house.html”
So, I’m afraid you are wrong. Do visit again. Educating Edited. Insult. –ST is considered a public duty.
“What false allegations do you imagine Wilson made? He said Saddam did not buy Uranium from Niger. As Niger’s Uranium is controlled by the French it was always a ludicrous proposition. Niger do not control access to their own Uranium, it’s leased out to France.”
Get your facts straight:
“And you are wrong when you say British intelligence continue to back up Bush’s 16 words in the SOTU.”
No I’m not. They still stand by it to this day.
“They most certainly do not. You should have read my blog more thoroughly on your visit. You would have found this:”
Um, I don’t know where you got the impression that I visited your blog, but I didn’t. Even if I had the time to, I wouldn’t have. I don’t really care to.
“So, I’m afraid you are wrong. Do visit again. Educating Edited. Insult. –ST is considered a public duty.”
1) I didn’t visit a first time and 2) the only thing you’ve “educated” people on here is how you don’t know what in the world you are talking about.
Kel wrote unfactually, “He said Saddam did not buy Uranium from Niger. ”
And who claimed that Saddam did by uranium from Niger Kel? Nobody but liberals.
This is the crux of the matter. Please recite to us the 16 words in the SOTU that liberals seem to fail in Reading Comprehension… We’ll wait for you to get back with us on those 16 words…
Wahh! Good riddance. –ST