whoppers

Mark Steyn, on former ambassador Joseph Wilson:

The Financial Times revealed last week that one continental intelligence agency had had a uranium-smuggling operation involving Iraq under surveillance for three years. In return, the only primary investigation initiated by the most powerful nation on the face of the Earth was to send a narcissistic kook from a Saudi-funded think-tank on vacation for a week to sip mint tea with government stooges. He didn't even bother filing a written report, and the ''Bush spurned my advice!'' column he wrote for the Times reads like a bad travelogue: ''Through the haze, I could see camel caravans crossing the Niger river.'' After that, the great narcissist somehow managed to make himself the center of the story — But hey, enough about Saddam's nuclear ambitions; let's talk about me.

And as it turns out, Wilson is not merely a narcissist, a hack, and a Saudi cabana boy, but a really poor liar as well.

Former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, dispatched by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq sought to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program with uranium from Africa, was specifically recommended for the mission by his wife, a CIA employee, contrary to what he has said publicly.

Wilson last year launched a public firestorm with his accusations that the administration had manipulated intelligence to build a case for war. He has said that his trip to Niger should have laid to rest any notion that Iraq sought uranium there and has said his findings were ignored by the White House.

Wilson's assertions — both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information — were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.

For more, see Pejman Yousefzadeh on what may happen next in the investigation over the outing of Wilson's wife, CIA operative Valerie Plame; and Gregry Djerejian on how—in Joshua Micah Marshall's wild and wacky world—the Washington Post has somehow fallen under the spell of the RNC.

Then again: given this WaPo interview with the two Senator Johns, perhaps Marshall is rightly concerned that the façade is cracking.

President Bush has governed in a dishonest fashion, trampling values on every issue except fighting terrorism and leaving voters “clamoring for restoration of credibility and trust in the White House again,” John F. Kerry and John Edwards said in an interview.

“The value of truth is one of the most central values in America, and this administration has violated” it, Kerry said in an interview with The Washington Post aboard the Democrats' campaign plane Friday. “Their values system is distorted and not based on truth.”

M'kay. Let's just see how this interview stacks up on the truth front, now shall we?

The Democratic nominee and his running mate said it was that kind of anger toward the president that prompted entertainers at Thursday's Democratic fundraising concert in New York to attack Bush as a “cheap thug” and a killer. “Obviously some performers, in my judgment and John's, stepped over a line neither of us believes appropriate, but we can't control that,” Kerry said. “On the other hand, we understand the anger, we understand the frustration.”

Obviously? Senator, you were there. And the only thing that you seemed to find objectionable was Whoopi Goldberg's labeling of your running mate as a “boy”.

With their ties loosened and shoes kicked off, the Democratic duo also vowed to forgo negative advertising in this presidential campaign — an assertion that draws scoffs from Republicans who note that independent Democratic groups have pounded the president with millions of dollars in negative ads.

“We have not stood up and attacked our opponents in personal ways,” Kerry said.

Even the interviewers saw through that one.

This week alone, Kerry has criticized Bush personally in speeches for lying, professional laziness, waiting until right before the election to indict Enron Corp.'s former chief executive, Kenneth L. Lay, lacking values and even having worse hair than the two Democrats. Some advisers are privately counseling Kerry to tone down his attacks on Bush.

Next:

Kerry and Edwards said they would return to the Senate to oppose a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, but only for a final vote. With debate set to begin next week on the amendment proposed by the president, Kerry emphatically reaffirmed the ticket's position that marriage is between a man and a woman.

“Let's be very firm about it. Both John and I believe firmly and absolutely that marriage is between a man and a woman,” Kerry said.

That may not be a baldfaced lie. Nonetheless, I don't believe it for an instant.

Is there any doubt that by the end of a Kerry term that gay marriage would be mandated nationwide, not by any democratic process, but by the courts, in a manner analogous to the imposition of abortion after Roe v. Wade? And that a President Kerry would not do a bloody thing to prevent it, but rather would urge the nation to “respect the wisdom of our jurists” after it was a fait accompli?

But check out Kerry's very next sentence:

“But we also believe that you don't play with the Constitution of the United States for political purposes and amend the Bill of Rights when you don't need to when states are adequately addressing this issue.”

What connection does the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment have with changing the Bill of Rights? Besides none, that is?

Which, of course, Kerry knows perfectly well.

Kerry, who recently said he agrees with the Roman Catholic Church that life begins at conception, said he disagrees with his church's teaching that homosexuality is a sin. Edwards twice did not respond when asked if he, too, believes life begins at conception.

Well, at least not a lie on Edwards' part, although Kerry's recent attempt to square his support for abortion under all circumstances with a claimed belief that “life begins at conception” was the vilest of panders. (More on Edwards' position in the postscript.)

With Republicans questioning Edwards's fitness to serve as a wartime president, given the fact that he has less than six years of government experience, Kerry defended his vice presidential pick as more qualified for the job than Bush. […]

Yet it was Kerry himself who challenged Edwards's readiness during the Democratic primary elections, saying it's not a time for “on-the-job training.” He mocked Edwards's youthfulness — the vice presidential candidate is 51 — and later asked aides what made Edwards think he was ready for the presidency.

“I challenged my level of experience against his, as I will challenge my level of experience against George Bush's and Dick Cheney's,” Kerry said. “That was a fair challenge … in the context of the primaries. But that doesn't mean [Edwards] isn't qualified against George Bush.”

Kerry added, “Does [Edwards] have as much experience as me? No. But I am running for president; he's running for vice president.”

Edwards could not quite let that pass.

Edwards, a first-term senator from North Carolina, who has served on the intelligence committee for more than five years but who has rarely been in Washington since launching his presidential bid in 2003, said his work on national security matters and terrorism qualifies him for the role of commander in chief.

“I'm ready today,” he said.

Goodness. Maybe Marshall is correct about the WaPo. Certainly the interviewers seem to have enjoyed writing this piece.

The new twist in [the Kerry-Edwards] populist approach is the heavy focus on values for a Democratic ticket. “It's the heart of our campaign,” Kerry said. “It's the center of what matters in America, it's why we are running.”

Kerry added, “The battles of this administration do not represent the values of America — with the sole exception, which we all share, of our determination to defeat terrorism and to stand up after 9/11 to that attack.”

Riiiiight. Which is why—once again—priorities are so important:

KING: Let's get to, first thing's first, news of the day. Tom Ridge warned today about al Qaeda plans of a large-scale attack on the United States, didn't increase the — do you see any politics in this? What's your reaction?

KERRY: Well, I haven't been briefed yet, Larry. They have offered to brief me; I just haven't had time.

[Update: schadenfreude dance removed. I really need to check how things render in IE before trying to be cute.]
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Postscript:

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