Dan Frisa
Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2003

That’s the long and short of the so-called “scandal” trumpeted by the Left and promoted by the lamestream media.

After all, it was the Novak column of July 14th that instigated this affair.

If that report was valid enough to instigate this flap, then why isn’t his clarification, that no one from the White House called him and that Wilson’s wife is neither an agent nor a covert operative, good enough to end it?

Well, ordinarily it would be – but for the insatiable, breathless desire of Democrats and their media pals to “tag” this President with something, anything, that might “stick”

Once again a neo-lib has alleged that Karl Rove was at the heart of a problem in the White House. And once again it seems apparent that the charge is utterly false.

Recall how Gen. Weasley Clark recently said that his calls offering to assist with the war in Iraq went unanswered by Rove? And how it turned out that Weasley, like Wilson, was engaging in outright lying?

It appears that the neo-libs are chasing the same shadows again.

But let’s look at the genesis of the entire sordid story.

It has been reported, repeatedly, that Vice President Cheney requested that Wilson travel to Africa to investigate whether Iraqis had sought to purchase weapons-grade uranium (yellow cake).

This claim has apparently never been substantiated, and it has just recently come to light that Wilson’s wife – a CIA analyst on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) – actually herself suggested that her husband – Wilson – undertake a trip to run down the story.

How, precisely, did Wilson go about this task?

Did he literally just show up in Niamey, Niger on the doorstep of the government and begin asking questions such as “Have any Iraqis been around lately asking to purchase yellow cake?”

Or did he – alone – don his super-sleuth raincoat and mill around the streets of Niger probing and poking around?

Actually no one but Wilson knows what he course he pursued on the ground there; we only know his conclusion – that it was “unlikely” that Iraq sought the uranium.

What does “unlikely” mean to former acting ambassador Wilson?

We have no idea, because there has never been a credible report as to his activities; only the tremendous, and conclusory, bottom-line that he didn’t find anyone willing to provide him with any confirmation.

But he doesn’t ever aver that he had any proof whatsoever.

One thing that’s obvious is that he seemingly got nowhere.

Now comes the related – and equally troubling – issue of the infamously false charge as to the so-called sixteen words in the State of the Union address, relating to the British report that Iraq had, indeed, sought weapons-grade material for its nuclear weapons program.

The White House was wrong to have conceded that the phrase should not have been included in the speech, the Wilson “report” notwithstanding.

Especially since the British parliament – even after an exhausting inquiry – concluded that the Blair government did not “sex up” its pre-war intelligence reports, including the Iraqi attempt to secure the material.

All of which puts a major damper on the now-suspect flimsy Wilson claim.

In fact, Wilson himself has engendered even more suspicion as a result of his own outrageous fabrication last month during an appearance in Seattle that he hoped “Karl Rove would be frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs” – only to admit yesterday that he had no basis to make such a claim.

But he made matters worse by adding that he had “great confidence that Rove” at least was aware of the issue.

How can that be when Wilson reluctantly admitted his original lie concerning Rove, attributing his false charge to getting caught up in the moment?

Wilson can’t have it both ways.

Rather than listening to the nut cakes in the Democrat party make outlandish and spurious charges against the President, perhaps someone should look into the circumstances that: a) caused Wilson’s wife to recommend him, and b) to have resulted in the CIA actually taking her up on the suggestion to send hubby on this now-suspect mission.

Bottom-line, there is no “there” there and leaves one to wonder what is really going on here.

One thing is certain: when a State Department staffer looked into Bill Clinton’s passport and visa files during the 1992 campaign, the administration of President George H. W. Bush took swift action to punish the perpetrator.

Contrast that serious treatment with the laugh and pass that Defense department spokesman Ken Bacon gave to his underlings who released confidential and protected personnel file information on Linda Tripp to the press in an attempt to discredit her, a violation of the federal privacy act.

So Clinton’s administration could unabashedly thumb its nose at the law (duh!) while both the prior and current Bush presidencies did the right thing in upholding the law to hold potential lawbreakers accountable.

Glaring double standards aside, what in the heck was Joe Wilson thinking when he broke his obligation of confidence in publishing articles and commenting publicly on his mission for the CIA?

Seems like Wilson should be the focus of a criminal investigation – not for leaking, but for the wholesale and willful dissemination of classified information gleaned at the behest of the U.S. government.

Dan Frisa represented New York in the United States Congress and served four terms in the New York State Assembly. E-mail: danfrisa@newsmax.com

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