On Message
Via Froomkin:
Powerline:
"The media feeding frenzy will, indeed, be massive. But absent a serious claim of a statutory violation or perjury, it's questionable whether anyone apart from liberal bloggers and other pre-existing Bush haters will partake in the media's dog food. This isn't a top presidential aide accepting an expensive gift, or engaging in lewd sexual conduct. It's a top aide providing truthful information to journalists in response to lies told to embarrass the administration and our government."
You might wonder why he did it on double secret backround if it was all on the up and up, but whatever. Highpockets and pals got the memo.
This is, of course, precisely the opposite of the truth, as one would expect from Bush apologists with serious projection problems. While it's true that this isn't about taking expensive gifts (Dukester call your office) or engaging in lewd sexual conduct which I agree is always an appropriate reqason to call in the feds --- this is in fact a case of a top aide providing false information to journalists in response to truths told to expose the administration's lies. This is upside-downism at its finest.
The exceedingly unpleasant Deborah Orin just framed this exactly the same way on Matthews. Poor Karl, he was just trying to correct the record on that liar Joe Wilson, who has been completely discredited --- even saying that his report actually backed up the claims about the yellowcake rather than refuted it. Matthews interjected, wondering why the White House has taken this long to produce that explanation and openly pondering whether it was all connected to the larger Iraq lies, specifically naming Cheney. Unfortunately, Dionne merely tried to deflect the Wilson calumny and said that this was about Rove, not Wilson.
He should have gone for the bigger question. Democrats need to develop some conventional wisdom about this right away and they need to filter it into the punditocrisy. Oddly, Chris Matthews has it right.
Update: Arthur has a stinging set-down of the Powerline boys here. I neglected to add the sickening coup de grace to the the above entry:
Valerie Plame isn’t very convincing as a covert agent of the United States, although she did fairly well as an agent of her husband and the president’s other enemies.
Apparently these pathetic geeks haven't even ever seen a James Bond Movie. I'm sure they turn away at the "lewd sexual" parts and read passages from the Bible.
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