Just when you thought that the much-hailed revivification of actual journalism sparked, Frankenstein-like, by the PlameGate fiasco* would leave tried-and-true journalistic hackery behind, along come Milbank and Pincus with a multitude of unattributed pejoratives to slime Joseph Wilson. Hiding behind such formulations as "Nobody disputes that...," they spout the administration's trademark Roveian spin intended to discredit opponents without addressing the substance of their criticism. Particularly interesting to me is that the "beyond dispute" category appears not to include such minutia as the fact that HE WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG! This is substantially borne out by the Senate intelligence committee report, which the article cites three times, using it against Wilson each time. However, on perusing the conclusions document (pdf alert), I see nothing that in any way refutes Ambassador Wilson's central contention. O refutation, where are thy footprints? Cause they ain't here.
The reporter/stenographers make no mention of his decision to go public in the first place with the NYT op-ed. Was this also a self-aggrandizement scheme? It seems to me to be fraught with considerable peril, as we clearly see now. They also fail to point out that some of his critics, eg, Heinyrocket, have been allowed to make outrageous claims that bear little relation to reality without being called on their prevarications.
And get this: "He also turned an arcane matter involving the Intelligence Identities Protection Act into a proxy fight over the administration's credibility and its case for war in Iraq." No, I think it was a fight over the administration's credibility and the lack of a case for war BEFORE said administration resorted to distraction techniques which appear to have been all too successful on the likes of Milbank and Pincus.
Oh, but I forget: he has a Jaguar convertible. Case closed.
*Who can forget Jon Stewart's conspiratorial whisper,
"We've replaced the White House press corps with actual journalists"?
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