Oh Rick Every good

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Oh, Rick! Every good defense attorney knows that you need to make sure you’ve got a handle on the facts in evidence before you come up with your cover story. We all know that, right?

Yesterday, Senator Rick Santorum said the following to The New York Times

Obviously, when you use foreign intelligence, you — we don’t have necessarily as much confidence or as much reliability as you do your own. It has since turned out to be, at least according to the reports that have been just released, not true. The president stepped forward and said so. I think that’s all you can expect.

Now, I’m all for buying only bona-fide Made-in-the-USA product. But there’s a bit of a problem with Santorum’s angle on this controversy. According to what we currently know, the White House preferred British intelligence to American intelligence. In fact, according to reporting by NPR’s Tom Gjelten (noted in yesterday’s post below), the White House had American intelligence that said one thing (no, Niger uranium) and British intelligence that said something else (yes, Niger uranium). And the White House went with the British intelligence because it was more helpful in making the White House’s case.

We’ll leave aside for the moment the fact that the White House almost certainly knew that the Brits’ intelligence was based on the same bogus documents the CIA had already concluded were fakes.

It just goes to show, you’re always better off buying American. Especially if you’re a politician.

Latest Editors' Blog
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: