Saturday, July 09, 2005

BuzzFlash interviews Joseph Wilson and a FOR THE RECORD CORRECTION

BuzzFlash has a new interview with Joseph Wilson (husband of Valerie Plame). Here's an excerpt:

BuzzFlash: Again, let's put aside the legal investigation for the time being. At the time that this became an issue -- due to David Corn's reporting and repeated editorials on BuzzFlash -- Bush demurred from taking any personal action to find out who on his staff endangered national security. For two years, whoever did this has presumably still been working at the White House. Hasn't Bush left us vulnerable, by having senior administration officials still on staff, who betrayed the citizens of the United States of America? Hasn't this made possible another potential security breach? Couldn't Bush just have called his senior staff into his office and said: "I have taken a solemn oath to protect every American. Whoever did this, come forward, you're fired"?
Ambassador Joe Wilson: I have made the same arguments repeatedly, most recently in my statement yesterday. We are where we are because of the culture of unaccountability that is pervasive in the White House. The President must assume responsibility.


Let's emphasize something again:

BuzzFlash: Again, let's put aside the legal investigation for the time being. At the time that this became an issue -- due to David Corn's reporting and repeated editorials on BuzzFlash -- Bush demurred from taking any personal action to find out who on his staff endangered national security.

Throughout the Plame (and Miller) entries, I've repeatedly credited David Corn (who deserves credit). I have not credited BuzzFlash. Why is that? I'm a moron more often than not. I'm a print reader and more likely to register (in terms of credit) what I'm holding in my hands. My apologies to BuzzFlash because I seriously doubt they've ever received the credit that they deserve here. As a BuzzFlash reader, there's no question that I saw their coverage on it. My apologies for not remembering it. Or for even noting that via links, they steered their readers to this topic by noting every story (big or small) on this topic. You couldn't be a BuzzFlash reader and not know something was happening from their headlines alone, even if you didn't click the links.

If they were a newspaper, their coverage would be termed flooding the zone because consistently for two years, they've followed this story. That's via their own contributions and links. Hopefully anyone else noting the driving forces behind this story noted their accomplishments and efforts. But I didn't. Their efforts kept the story alive and kept people informed. They've earned a piece of the bragging rights on this story as much as David Corn and my apologies to them for not noting it (or remembering it until I read the e-mail Dallas just sent). The Times would call this a FOR THE RECORD CORRECTION.

Note that at the bottom of the interview is Wilson's statement on Judith Miller.

Click here for their 2004 interview with Wilson. Click here for their July 23, 2003 editorial "Some Dare Call It Treason."


And we'll quote from their October 1, 2003 editorial " How Do You Parse Treason?" because Dallas picked it as his favorite on the topic:

In July, we were proud to pick up on David Corn's commentary in "The Nation," which was the first piece to identify the significance of the July 14th Bob "I Am the Spigot for Karl Rove Leaks" Novak column [LINK]. BuzzFlash immediately contacted Corn and wrote two scathing editorials, "Some Dare Call It Treason" [LINK] on July 21st, and "The Integrity and Dignity of the White House Become a Scum Pond of Betrayals and Gutter Smears Under Bush," [LINK] on July 23rd.
In the July 21st BuzzFlash editorial, we were the first to support Corn's outrage at how the White House had betrayed the nation and our national security. Despite Robert Novak's attempts to backpedal now with "parsing language" about how he was leaked or the damage done by the leak, remember this: Whatever comes out of Novak's mouth is what Rove wants him to spin.
Also remember this: Valerie Plame, the CIA operative who was outed by the White House with the assistance of Robert Novak -- as we pointed out in our July 21st article -- specialized in tracking the illegal trafficking in Weapons of Mass Destruction! This is the perverse, horrifying truth. We were led into a war on the trumped up lies that Saddam Hussein had WMDs and then two senior administration officials -- one of them assumed to be Karl Rove by almost anyone with knowledge of the White House -- render a CIA operative virtually useless -- and her specialty is finding out who is buying, selling and trading WMDs. And her outing by senior Bush administration officials, in all likelihood, ruined her network of contacts and put her and her contacts at risk. She was, allegedly, operating "under cover" in what would be perceived as a non-CIA affiliated position.


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