Bending the Third Rail
Because We Should, We Can, We Do
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Confusion Solved
Remember a few days ago when Valerie Plame Wilson declared that she did not recommend her husband go to Niger? At that time, I suggested that her testimony would be newsworthy, at least in that someone was lying when it was reported she did recommend her husband. The nutbars at Faux have jumped all over this "discrepancy" to claim Plame Wilson was lying.

Well, like clockwork, they're wrong. I didn't know it, but I guess that claim was really disputed some time ago, which goes to show just how powerful such misinformation really is:
Hume’s false claim originated from a statement attached to the Senate Intelligence Committee report on Iraq that was released in 2004. In an addendum to that report, Sens. Pat Roberts (R-KS), Christopher Bond (R-MO), and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) wrote definitively, “The plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was suggested by the former ambassador’s wife, a CIA employee.” The right-wing, including columnist Bob Novak, have taken the statement written by three Republican senators and falsely attributed it as the “unanimous” conclusion of the Senate report.

The three conservative senators based their claim on testimony by a CIA employee who appeared before the Senate Intel Committee. Plame revealed on Friday that the CIA employee later apologized to her “with tears in his eyes” because he said “his words had been twisted and distorted” by the senators. And in fact, the unnamed employee drafted a memo, asking that he be re-interviewed by the Senate to correct the record. His attempts to set the record straight were denied.
That kinda puts that issue to bed.