Nicholas D. Kristof's lame condemnation

While E. J. Dionne really gave to the administration in The Washington Post this morning Nicholas D. Kristof's commentary in The New York Times is pretty lame. (Available at Truthout) While he asks some good questions;

• Did you ask Scooter Libby to undertake his inquiries about Ambassador Joseph Wilson?


• Why did you independently ask the C.I.A. for information about the Wilsons?


• Did you know that Mrs. Wilson was a covert officer?


• Did you advise Mr. Libby to leak information about Mrs. Wilson's work in the C.I.A. to journalists?


• When Mr. Libby made his statements in the inquiry - allegedly committing perjury - were you aware of what he was saying?


• Was Mr. Libby fearful of disclosing something about your behavior in the summer of 2003?

he is much too kind to Mr Cheney.

My guess is that there was no malevolent conspiracy to "out" Mrs. Wilson. Rather, my hunch is that you and Mr. Libby were enraged at what you perceived as false suggestions that you had been personally responsible for sending Mr. Wilson to Niger and had then ignored his findings.

I'm speculating that you may have thought that you were just knocking down unfair exaggerations and rumors - and then Mrs. Wilson's identity was disclosed to suggest that she was more responsible for sending him to Niger than you were.

I'm sorry Mr Kristof but that's just bull shit. Mr Cheney and Mr Libby knew damned well they were fabricating intelligence and wanted to stop anyone who threatened to shine a light on the truth. Of course this was a "malevolent conspiracy", everything about the run up to this war was a "malevolent conspiracy". I'm sorry Nick, but Darth Cheney is the Lord of Darkness and you don't do your readers any favors by trying to minimize the evil that lurks in the office of the Vice President.

As we reported below the administration withheld a report on falsified intelligence over 40 years ago because they feared it might result in people questioning their own falsified intelligence.