The truth impaired left

Debra Saunders:

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It doesn't speak well that Fitzgerald bought into that Bush-hater spin when he wrote of the Bushies' attempts to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" Wilson. No. The Bushies weren't looking to hurt the little woman, but were waging an honest challenge to the truth-impaired Wilson and his false denial that his wife had anything to do with the CIA sending him to Niger, as well as reports that Cheney sent Wilson to Niger.

Most importantly: The Niger story has not proven to be false. There is good reason to believe Iraq didn't get uranium from Niger, but had tried to. The United Kingdom's Butler Commission found the Niger story to be "well-founded." Ditto a Senate Intelligence Committee report. Or, as The Washington Post editorialized on Sunday, "The (NIE) material that Mr. Bush ordered declassified established, as have several subsequent investigations, that Mr. Wilson was the one guilty of twisting the truth. In fact, his report supported the conclusion that Iraq had sought uranium."

In short, Bush was right to say in his 2003 State of the Union Address, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Niger."

It's not even clear that the leak of Plame's name was a crime. As prominent GOP attorney Victoria Toensing noted, the government has to establish that Plame was covert and that the Bushies knew it. Fitzgerald positively runs from that issue. He wrote in last week's brief, "Defendant is not charged with knowingly disclosing classified information."

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