Fred Hiatt in Wonderland.

Holy fucking hannah. I know that this space is usually reserved for amusing, scatological, or just lame-ass captions of major players looking stupid (or very cute animals looking very cute), but this morning's Washington Post editorial is possibly the most heinously mendacious piece of writing I've seen in quite some time . . . and I've read some really heinous shit on the Washington Post editorial pages lately. Almost every fucking sentence is wrong. The spaces between the paragraphs are wrong. Even the FONT is wrong.

Fred Hiatt should win Keith Olbermann's Worst Person in the World title for this one.

Let's just start with the title and subhead:

The Libby Verdict - The serious consequences of a pointless Washington scandal

POINTLESS WASHINGTON SCANDAL?! Did you write that after downing a bottle of absinthe, Fred? Trying to discredit the man who challenged your BFFs' reason for going to war in Iraq? That's pointless?

First graf sets out the case against Libby. Even Fred Hiatt can't lie about the timeline of the case. But then we follow that hyperactive, pocket watch-wearing rabbit down the hole with a pinafored Fred, who beelines for the caterpillar and its hookah pipe.

The fall of this skilled and long-respected public servant is particularly sobering because it arose from a Washington scandal remarkable for its lack of substance.

Quoi? "Lack of substance"? Define "substance", Fred. And sadly, it's something your cranium appears to be lacking, if you sincerely believe that there was no "substance" in this "scandal." Oh, and by the way - it wasn't a scandal. It was -- and is -- a CRIME that Libby committed, and you know what they say about guilt by association, Mr. Hiatt.

It was propelled not by actual wrongdoing but by inflated and frequently false claims, and by the aggressive and occasionally reckless response of senior Bush administration officials -- culminating in Mr. Libby's perjury.

Riiiiiiiight. Trying to manufacture and manipulate facts in order to start a war in a sovereign nation is not "actual wrongdoing." Kind of like how holding up a gun at a cashier and demanding that he or she empty the register isn't a robbery.

Mr. Wilson was embraced by many because he was early in publicly charging that the Bush administration had "twisted," if not invented, facts in making the case for war against Iraq.

Mr. Wilson was embraced by many, Mr. Hiatt, because he was saying what many people were thinking. And, Fred -- may I call you Fred? -- THEY DID INVENT FACTS IN MAKING THE CASE FOR WAR AGAINST IRAQ!

In conversations with journalists or in a July 6, 2003, op-ed, he claimed to have debunked evidence that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger; suggested that he had been dispatched by Mr. Cheney to look into the matter; and alleged that his report had circulated at the highest levels of the administration.

Fred, Fred, Fred. Ambassador Wilson (1) DID debunk the Niger yellow cake claim, and (2) NEVER said that Dick Cheney dispatched him to Niger. He DID say that he was sent by the CIA (y'know, the place that where Wilson's wife had worked for 20 years, the woman you were so quick to claim used her clout with the CIA to send her husband to Niger). Jesus, can't you even check your own newspaper for the facts?

A bipartisan investigation by the Senate intelligence committee subsequently established that all of these claims were false -- and that Mr. Wilson was recommended for the Niger trip by Ms. Plame, his wife.

Oy gevalt. Fred, this is what the report said:

The former ambassador’s wife told Committee staff that when CPD decided it would like to send the former ambassador to Niger, she approached her husband on behalf of the CIA and told him "there’s this crazy report" on a purported deal for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq.

"On behalf of the CIA," Fred. I don't know what kind of power you think Ms. Plame wielded, but it wasn't some dastardly plot hatched by the Wilsons while they hid out in their secret headquarters feeding their sharks with frickin' laser beams on their heads.

When this fact, along with Ms. Plame's name, was disclosed in a column by Robert D. Novak, Mr. Wilson advanced yet another sensational charge: that his wife was a covert CIA operative and that senior White House officials had orchestrated the leak of her name to destroy her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson.

Fred, you were never very good at connecting the dots. Why didn't Joe Wilson reveal that his wife worked for the CIA? What part of Fitzgerald's complaint didn't you read? Oh, wait, I know. The part that said that VALERIE PLAME WILSON WAS A COVERT OPERATIVE.

The partisan furor over this allegation led to the appointment of special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

By President G. W. Bush - you know, the REPUBLICAN behind the desk in the Oval Office?

Yet after two years of investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald charged no one with a crime for leaking Ms. Plame's name.

[clears paperwork off desk and proceeds to bang forehead on it]

UPDATE: And, as noted in comments over at Eschaton, if Ms. Plame were not covert, why did the CIA press charges? Because if you'll remember, Fred, that's where this claim was initiated. Not in some secret lair where the Wilsons spent their time brushing each other's hair and plotting the overthrow of PNAC.

UPDATE II: In addition, Fred, Fitzgerald nailed Libby on OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE charges. He couldn't bring an action against anyone for the outing of Ms. Plame because Scooter Libby OBSTRUCTED his investigation. Jesus fucking Christ, man, you're as clueless as Larry King!

In fact, he learned early on that Mr. Novak's primary source was former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage, an unlikely tool of the White House.

And Fred vomits the right wing talking point that Armitage was trying to sabotage the administration. Thanks, Fred! Your check is in the mail. Love, Richard Scaife.

The trial has provided convincing evidence that there was no conspiracy to punish Mr. Wilson by leaking Ms. Plame's identity -- and no evidence that she was, in fact, covert.

Okay, I'm only going to say this one more time, reeeeeeeally slowly, because you're obviously not listening, Fred: Valerie. Plame. WAS. A. Covert. Operative. The special prosecutor, a guy not known for being a careless risk-taker, even put that fact in his complaint. Jesus, Fred, just give this one up already. Just because you say it's so, doesn't make it so.

It would have been sensible for Mr. Fitzgerald to end his investigation after learning about Mr. Armitage.

LOOK OUT FOR THAT APPLE CART!

Instead, like many Washington special prosecutors before him, he pressed on, pursuing every tangent in the case.

Gee, Fred, are you saying that it was okay for Kenneth Starr to sniff every pair of panties in the Clintons' bureau?

In so doing he unnecessarily subjected numerous journalists to the ordeal of having to disclose confidential sources or face imprisonment.

Ah. So that's what this is all about. Your little cadre of White House stenographers might get their moussed hair mussed.

One, Judith Miller of the New York Times, lost several court appeals and spent 85 days in jail before agreeing to testify.

Freddie, you poor deluded girl. Judith Miller was assisting in covering up a crime, not exposing one. Let's remember that it's the latter that the shield law is supposed to protect.

The damage done to journalists' ability to obtain information from confidential government sources has yet to be measured.

Because it hasn't affected anyone in D.C. Everybody has a good laugh and another helping of cocktail weenies.

Mr. Wilson's case has besmirched nearly everyone it touched.

When you're done blowing the Bush administration, I recommend some Blistex, Fred. The Wilsons? Yeah, real besmirched. They just inked a movie deal.

The former ambassador will be remembered as a blowhard.

Ooh, fainting couch to Aisle 3! Fred, Ambassador Wilson spoke truth to power -- he called out the Bush administration for the criminal liars that they are. YOU, on the other hand, wouldn't know what to do with truth if it came up and cockpunched you for attention.

Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby were overbearing in their zeal to rebut Mr. Wilson and careless in their handling of classified information.

Fred, check your dictionary. "Intentional" is not spelled "c-a-r-e-l-e-s-s."

Mr. Libby's subsequent false statements were reprehensible.

A truth! See, Fred? You CAN do it!

And Mr. Fitzgerald has shown again why handing a Washington political case to a federal special prosecutor is a prescription for excess.

Because prosecuting someone for obstruction of justice is just so . . . trivial. Unlike a blowjob.

And the piece de resistance:

Mr. Fitzgerald was, at least, right about one thing: The Wilson-Plame case, and Mr. Libby's conviction, tell us nothing about the war in Iraq.

No, Mr. Hiatt. This case, and this conviction, tells us EVERYTHING about Iraq, and how the media was complicit in making the false case for war. You should be so utterly and completely ashamed of yourselves. You're just as guilty as Mr. Libby for covering up for this administration's series of crimes.

Time to step away from the hookah, Fred. Your brain is fried.

Comments

[Elspeth R]

You GO! GIRRRRRRRL!!!! :)
Wahoo!!!
Elspeth

[Victor M Adamus]

Excellent! I don't read the Post anymore for this very reason.

[Sorghum Crow]

Great analysis, WT.
Hiatt needs a thorough moral delousing, perhaps after tarring and feathering.

[Capital J]

I dare you to go after the Wall Street Journal editorial on the same subject. Somebody with guts has to do it! Be sure you have all your shots first; the shit is much deeper and more toxic than in the WaPo.

[Jack K, the Grumpy Forester]

...the on-line comments section for Fred Hiatt's little mescaline-addled screed is a hoot, running beyond 10 screen pages. The general tone of the readership's response (at least in the first couple of pages that I bothered to read) suggested that the Honorable Mr. Hiatt should be dragged from his comfortable office out into those mean D.C. streets, stripped, beaten with pulaski handles, tarred and feathered, and ridden up and down the boulevard by large men wearing big western spurs with file-honed rowels, after which he should be run out of town on a rail...

On the other hand, some folks were really mad at him...

[queek]

Wash Post + NY Post = Fox News

[S.L.]

How many millions of dollars did the government spend on Whitewater? This administration and their supporters, like Fred "headuphisass" Hiatt, dragged us into a war that has no end. This country is being run by Republican nincompoops.

[watertiger]

Capital J,

Do I have to register to read the WSJ editorial? Does anyone have an access code handy?

[dan mcenroe]

If I may add - and pardon me if you saw this rant the first time over at Echidne's -

It was the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT that appointed Fitz. JOHN ASHCROFT. The BUSH ADMINISTRATION. This was not some extra-governmental hit job perpetrated by the dirty fucking hippies.

We're just enjoying it.

[llamajockey]

Thanks Watertiger.

Everybody needs to comment on the Washington Post Editorial page.
Oh yeah. Make sure you mention the outstanding coverage Firedoglake and Kieth Olberman did on the Plame trial.

WAPO is increasingly a Neo-Con Elitist rag completely out of touch with its readership.

No wonder WAPO is hemorrhaging subscribers at an alarming rate.

I will give you another example last week WAPO allowed Bill Gates to write an Idiotorial calling for virtually unlimited and unregulated importation of "non-immigrant" indentured workers in order to replace the already decimated ranks of US citizen IT Workers and engineers.

The WAPO printed no editorial giving an alternative viewpoint. Gates' wife Melinda of course sits on the advisory board of WAPO.
Of course dozens of pages of comments screamed about the one side Bullshit of Gates.

You have to ask yourself just how fucking out of touch WAPO is. North Virginia is home to tens and tens of thousands of unemployed or under employed Techies, the booming ex-middle class. WAPO wrote article after article endorsing Harris Miller the Darth Vador of Labor Arbitrage. Lobbyist scumbag, ITAA founder and president, DLC Corporatist ratfuck primary candidate. WAPO attacked Jim Webb relentlessly. Funny thing folks came out of the wood work in mass to support Webb. WAPO never even realized Allen was fucked over the Macca fiasco.

Face it Hiatt will do to WAPO what Marty Peretz did to TNR only at 5 times the rate.

[darkblack]

Top shelf Fitz fisking there, WT.

Hiatt, you've been spanked. Go to your room.

[Bustednuckles]

That was beautiful.Just beautiful.
DO IT AGAIN!!!

[AZ Matt]

Watertiger,

Great deconstruct on the WaPo poo-poo! Christy at FDL ha been doing the same. The WaPo comments page has hammered Fred Hiatt all morning. The Fools lost big but can't admit that to their readership.

[vieravisionary]

This was great! Very simple and direct with the right level of humor mixed with plain old-fashion butt-kicking! I greatly needed to read this after all of the "junk" being spoken by adminstration lackeys!

Thanks!

[ifthethunderdontgetya³²™]

Shame on you, Fred Hiatt. You are a disgrace to your profession and this newspaper.

By ifthethunderdontgetya | Mar 7, 2007 8:41:26 AM | Request Removal

That was my contribution to the comments. Thank you, watertiger, for the detailed debunking.

[angie]

You knocked this one waaaaaaaay out of the ballpark.

Watertiger is a goddess.

[leslie ;-)]

I nearly went through the roof when I read it this morning. I then wrote a comment - which was vastly edited (and not due to language, I might add) before they posted it. And then wrote to the editorial board. I am outraged that obstruction of justice and perjury is no longer considered a crime - unless it is a Democrat of course.
And of course joe wilson is a blowhard - because
he told on the Rethugs.
fuckers all of them

[leslie ;-)]

well, I did use the term "blow-job". but very judiciously.

And they took out my references to the statement made by GHWBush about calling the outing of a CIA agent "treason".

asshats.

[Blue Dido]

Excellent post, Watertiger. One little quibble:

>>THEY DID INVENT FACTS IN MAKING THE CASE FOR WAR AGAINST IRAQ!>>

They didn't invent facts---they made up LIES. They HID facts!

[leslie ;-)]

Hey, ifthethunderdontgetya I saw your response this morning before I wrote mine...

leslie ;-)

[watertiger]

Blue Dido,

Fair enough!

[ifthethunderdontgetya³²™]

Speaking of Ms. Plame, is everyone getting the cognitive dissonance of wingnut point a) She was just a secretary, and wingnut point b) She sent an ambassador to investigate for the CIA?

[Capital J]

WT, just got back and saw your question. Yeah, the WSJ online is subscriber-only; I read it in the dead-tree version. I'll see what I can do about finding it digitally for ya. Only the first few sentences are readable for free, but they'll give you the general flavor:

The word "guilty" had barely crossed the airwaves yesterday in the perjury case of Scooter Libby before critics were calling it proof that President Bush "lied us into war" and demanding that Dick Cheney be strung up next. Maybe now Mr. Bush will realize that this case was always a political fight over Iraq and do the right thing by pardoning Mr. Libby.

The conviction is certainly a travesty of justice, though that is not the jury's fault. The 11 men and women were faced with confusing evidence of conflicting memories in a case that never should have been brought. ...

[watertiger]

Capital J,

Oy vey. Sounds pretty much identical to the New York Post's whiny ass titty baby act.

To quote arabella trefoil: DRF.

[ifthethunderdontgetya³²™]

Hiya Leslie, I am at home for the moment, but have to go back to work (where big brother watches all my keystrokes).

I plan to follow up my comment on the editorial (minor impact) with a detailed letter to Deborah Howell (arguably minor impact, but harder to ignore).

Fred Hiatt has written these same things before, and they've been debunked before. He deserves to be fired, and that is the point I will make. Concisely. Politely. And Firmly.

P.S.

Should anyone here need a line by line debunking of Fred Hiatt*s lies, please go to tripledubya dependablerenegade dotcom. Fred has written these same tired neocon lying points before, and they have all been debunked. Repeatedly. He deserves to be fired.

By ifthethunderdontgetya | Mar 7, 2007 1:39:14 PM | Request Removal

[Ksue]

Maybe this quote from an online biography of Fred Hiatt says it all:

"He is the author of "The Secret Sun: A Novel of Japan," published in 1992, as well as two books for children, "If I Were Queen of the World" (1997) and "Baby Talk" (1999)."

[Eureka Springs, AR]

my comment at the wapo:

I guess Victoria Toensing had to take the day off for television appearances, so I hope your check from Comstock Inc. is a worth it. This is a remarkable piece of wing-nut projection via some sort of neo-kaleidoscopic hallucination obviously caused by looking into the bowels of denial and the most septic of think tanks for far to long. Look away, sir, look away. Better have the laundry use a little less starch in your brown shirts.

[donna]

A-freakin'-men.

Libby is only the very tip of the thoroughly corrupt iceberg that is Bush-Cheney's administration. Thank goodness, their era is melting.

[JeffinBerlin]

Watertiger!
You should do this more often!!!

[Vicki, Who Al Gore]

Nice rant, watertiger.

Very nice.

[Palolo lolo]

Even Froomkin was aghast

[Lies, Lies, Lies]

Hot Damn! That was just, just...MARVELOUS!

You GO Girl!

[lowly grunt]

Dear watertiger,

I have bookmarked this page and intend to keep it as "the big gun" if my brother decides to escalate his fight about truth telling in 1998. Thanks in advance.

[leslie ;-)]

right now, you can't even access the editorial at WaPo.

[Ray Mann]

Marvelous darling, just marvelous.
Can't wait for your followup detailed letter to Deborah Howell (arguably minor impact, but harder to ignore). It's a real shame that the newspaper that exposed Nixon's Watergate scandal has become a White House PR outlet. Commentary like this from the Fred Hiatt's, Victoria Toensing's, and Barbara Comstock's, confirms that it has become a Neo-Con Elitist rag.
Katharine Graham must be spinning in her grave.

[sittenpretty,MCI SUCKS!]

TRUTH TO POWER MY FRIEND,the language spoken here!

[SPIIDERWEB™]

Excellent Fisking of this story.

Now calm yourself down.

[Washington Whizzer]

If he does it again, hit him with your taser. Spankings are fun to watch, but they don't elicit convulsions.

[four legs good]

You spent a lot more time dissecting Fred than I did.

For me it ends with the CIA referring it to justice.

There's no way anyone can argue with that, and yet I never hear a single talking head mention that. Pretty convenient, eh?

[Daver9]

The WAPO as an opinion outlet has collapsed, even before Katherine Graham died. Broder and Will are Bush shills, Freddy H. is worse, the lib columnists can't find their footing. News pages occasionally rise but only after the barn-door-horses-gone (i.e. Bush at 29%)with Walter Reed stories

Why? I think maybe it's the punlisher, dim son Graham. As I recall, wasn't there madness and a tragic suicide involving brilliant Mr. Graham? Perhaps that explains the right wing crazyness of the boy inheritor now in charge.

[watertiger]

Daver9,

Shades of Punch vs. Pinch Sulzberger? The latest son has run the New York Times into the ground.

[sdf (Stu)]

I know I'm late here wt, but I just wanted to say that this, your response, is a thing of beauty.

I like what Joe Wilson said (paraphrasing): Fred Hiatt apparently doesn't read what his own reporters report in his own paper, so why should I?

[Poopyman]

I didn't comment at the WaPo website, but I sent something which probably hurts a little bit more:

March 8, 2006
Why I am cancelling my subscription

I have endured the seemingly never-ending degradation of your newspaper for several years now. Debra Howell's perversion of her ombudsman role really got me thinking, but the editorial decision making in the past few months, capped by Fred Hiatt's editorial in the March 7 edition has sealed the deal. Mr. Hiatt's willful distortion of the facts in the Libby trial have no place in a major newspaper, are shameful beyond all reason, and to top it all off, are perfectly transparent to all but the most inattentive readers. I'll not be talked down to by the likes of Mr. Hiatt any more.

Signed (real name and address)

Not as pointed as "Fuck off and die", but hopefully more effective.

[leslie ;-)]

4LG ~
I wrote the same thing (about the CIA requesting
an investigation) in my response to the hiatt "editorial" yesterday.
Funnily, that never made it into my comments
(but the thing about the blow-job did).

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