July 11, 2004

I'VE BEEN OFF THE INTERNET -- and enjoying it considerably -- since yesterday. I'll be back later. In the meantime, read this Mark Steyn column about the collapse of the "Bush LIED!" argument:

Last summer, the comparatively minor matter of uranium from Niger was all over the front pages and the news shows. Do you think Butler's report will be? Do you think Terry McAuliffe and John Kerry and Howard Dean will be eating humble yellowcake? . . .

Bush didn't LIE!!!! He was right, and the CIA were wrong. That doesn't mean they LIED!!!! either. Intelligence is never 100 percent. You make a judgment, and in this instance the judgments of the British and Europeans were right, and the judgment of the principal intelligence agency of the world's hyperpower was wrong. That should be a cause of great concern -- for all Americans. . . .

And in the most exquisite reductio of this now universal rule, if it's a choice between Bush and the CIA, the left sides with the CIA. . . .

This isn't an anti-war movement. This is a movement in denial.

Read the whole thing. Andrew Sullivan has more:

On the face of it, Wilson is a complete, partisan fraud.

Meanwhile, longtime Wilson skeptic Tom Maguire is dancing a link-rich victory jig over Wilson's demise. ("This is a dark, unflattering side of me, but I am loving this. . . . Let me quote Atrios here - 'A source lies to you, and you find it out, you burn him. Period.'") As best I can tell with a quick check, Pejman Yousefzadeh has the best roundup on the utter collapse of Joe Wilson's credibility. I'll be back later -- but just in case it's a while, note that Cass Sunstein, law professor at the University of Chicago and author of Republic.com, will be guest-posting for me over at GlennReynolds.com.

In the meantime, if you can't get enough of the Joe Wilson implosion, check out Greg Djerejian's lengthy response to Josh Marshall's efforts to defend Wilson. And Roger Simon says that the Wilson story has been a "symphony of mendacity." Now growing ever more frantic and discordant. . . .