Here’s the question I’m wrestling with. How do you rebut or refute the White House’s defense against the accusations that they knowingly peddled bogus intelligence when they put the Niger-uranium claims into the president’s State of the Union speech?
Oh, wait a second. I forgot. They have no defense!
And I don’t mean they have no defense, as in the evidence is too overwhelming. I mean, they have no defense — as in, to the best of my knowledge, no administration figure has even tried to respond to — let alone deny — the allegations. They haven’t even discussed the issue.
Have you noticed that?
Back a bit less than three weeks ago, on June 8th, Condi Rice said that none of the top level administration leaders knew the Niger documents were bogus at the time they put them in the president’s speech. But that was before we knew most of the information we know now — before Nick Kristof’s June 13th column, before the Ackerman/Judis article in The New Republic, before Tom Gjelten’s NPR report. (I discuss each in my column in The Hill this week.)
Without going into all the nitty-gritty details, Rice gave her loose denial when there was very little in the public record to contradict her. Now there’s a lot to contradict her. And all I can hear is silence.
It’s a pretty serious charge. And it’s been leveled (in the three pieces I mentioned above) by some of the country’s most respected political journalists. What does it say about the DC press corps that they can’t or won’t get the principals — Rice, Cheney or any of their top aides — to dignify the accusations with as much as a denial?
Who’s on the show this weekend, Tim?
