Thursday, August 11, 2005

How Dishonest is the Huffington Post?

This Walter Pincus Washington Post story is linked from the front page. This is the conclusion:
Two other sources appear to support the view that Wilson's wife suggested her husband's trip. One is a June 2003 memo by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR). The other, which depends in good part on the INR document, is a statement of the views of Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and two other Republican members. That statement was attached to the full committee report on its 2004 inquiry into the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The INR document's reference to the Wilson trip is contained in two sentences in a three-page memo on why the State Department disagreed with the idea that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa -- a view that would ultimately be endorsed after the Iraq invasion by the U.S. weapons hunter David Kay. The notes supporting those two sentences in the INR document say that the Feb. 19, 2002, meeting at the CIA was "apparently convened by [the former ambassador's] wife who had the idea to dispatch [him] to use his contacts to sort out the Iraq-Niger uranium issue," according to the Senate intelligence committee report. But one Senate Democratic staff member said, "That was speculation, that was not true."

The full Senate committee report says that CPD officials "could not recall how the office decided to contact" Wilson but that "interviews and documents indicate his wife suggested his name for the trip." The three Republican senators wrote that they were more certain: "The plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was suggested by the former ambassador's wife, a CIA employee."

The Huffington Post's headline? CIA Officials, not Valerie Plame, Chose Ambassador Joe Wilson for Niger Trip.

You know, it's one thing to be partisan, but time after time, Arianna's site puts up headlines that have little to do with, or are directly contradicted by, the stories they link to. Tabloids would ashamed of these tactics...regardless of whether Arianna's venture is a success or failure commercially, it is an embarrassment of major proportions, and should signal the end of Arianna's credibility.

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