You've Got A Friend at the NY Times

You do if you are Joe Wilson, anyway, which may shed a bit of light on the coy "coverage" the Times has provided on the recent developments in the Joe Wilson story.

Excerpting from "The Politics of Truth" by Joe Wilson himself (p. 355), I find Wilson describing a meeting with David Shipley, editor of the op-ed page, at the Times on July 24, 2003:

En route, down a long windowless corridor [inside the Times building] with offices on either side, doors sporting the names of Times writers, we ran into veteran Timesman Robert Semple. David [Shipley] explained that I was "the one who wrote the article on what he didn't find in Africa," and Semple, turning to me, said, "So, you're the one who turned our paper around." The Times had been mired in the scandal surrounding Jayson Blair, the fraudulent journalist whose reporting had been questioned by a number of colleagues.

Sometimes it's hard to let go.

UPDATE: We write of Missing Persons - Nick Kristof's role in promoting Mr. Wilson is covered in this fascinating Weekly Standard piece (or see Vanity Fair, or this post).

However, Mr. Kristof is utterly absent from Joe Wilson's book - no mention in the index and no mention in the section devoted to Mr. Wilson's media promotion in the spring of 2003. Mr. Kristof's May 6 column is cited in the bibliography; his June 13 follow-up column is not.

Where did he go? One guess is that he disappeared into a legal thicket. The forgeries are being investigated by the FBI; the Plame leak is part of an ongoing criminal investigation. Maybe Wilson has been advised to keep mum about Kristof.

Now, that does not explain why the Times is not covering other aspects of this story, such as their role in fact-checking (or not) Wilson's July 6 op-ed. And it does not explain why the Times has not explained its odd situation (if this is what it is) to its readers. But it may explain the mysterious disappearance from this story of Nick Kristof.

Comments

[Reg]

And the beat goes on:

“Among other recent successes, the bureau's admirers say, was a classified report in 2003 that criticized the Bush administration view that a victory in Iraq would help spread democracy across the Arab world. It also predicted correctly that Turkey might not permit American troops to cross its territory en route to Iraq and dismissed as "highly dubious" a British contention, NOW DISCREDITED [emphasis mine], that Iraq was trying to procure uranium from Niger.” ("Tiny Agency's Iraq Analysis Is Better Than Big Rivals'", by Douglas Jehl, New York Times, 7/19/2004).

To sum up, the British contention--Iraq sought uranium from Africa-- was:

"reasonable" (ISC report, 9/9/03)
"well-founded" (Butler report, 7/14/04)
"...I don’t know..." (Sen. Roberts, AP 7/18/04)
"..., now discredited..." (NYT, 7/19/04)

Ooookaaay.

[Jack]

The NYT is unbelievable. The idea that it would make that claim after the publication of the Butler report is astonishing, moreso because the Wilson story was clearly on the ropes as early as June 28, when the Financial Times reported on the alternative British intelligence for the yellowcake transaction.

[ParseThis]

It's reputation rehabilitation week! I wonder if the Weekly Standard, NRO and a host of other scapegoaters will review their scathing commentaries blaming the State Dept for the rising and the setting of the sun and everything under, and accept responsibility that they may have mis-spoken about some things for which they had no idea and that they ultimately unecessarily muddied the waters and diminished healthy democratic dialogue? It seems not only fashionable to do but also honorable.

[TM]

It seems not only fashionable to do but also honorable.

I missed that fashion, at least as it relates to blogo-folks admitting that Wilson may have a bit of a credibility problem. Will he get another TIME cover, one wonders?

Anyway, the good news is , we do have more than one Intel agency - I like competition.

Secondly, I can only guess that Reg is being argumentative - it would be great (I guess) if the intel Bush was citing in the SOTU had stood up. However, he is not lying unless he presented it in bad faith.