Liar, liar pants on fire
Turns out the Bush Lied, People Died folks need a new slogan. The story about the President lying about Nigerian uranium was, well, a lie.
Update: I have the slogan: A source lied, and liberals cried.
Update2: The original story says the Whitehouse acknowledged and doesn’t state who at the whitehouse. Further reading states that the supposed CIA source used was this liar. And the story at sfgate was pretty much identical to the original capitol blue story.
The sole relevant source for the entire story has been discredited.
July 10th, 2003 at 10:18 am
Huh?
I’m sorry – I don’t follow.
AP puts out a story that SFGate.com and this Capitol Hill Blue site both print: “White House admits Bush wrong about Iraqi nukes”. The text is the same in both articles, so it wasn’t original to either website – it was an AP Wire story.
Then the editorial by Thompson suggests he was duped by one of his, apparently numerous, “sources” and offers a mea culpa. Supposedly the guy conned Thompson into believing he was present at a White House security briefing where the African nukes were discussed and wanted to “come clean”. Apparently the guy was a fraud and disappeared.
Help me – how does this invalidate the AP story? What did one have to do with the accuracy of the other?
Maybe I’m missing the point.
PS – This guy Thompson has more “sources” than the wackos that call the Tony Basilio sports talk show here in Knoxville claiming to know what football recruit is going to what school….and they’re about as dependable.
July 10th, 2003 at 10:59 am
From the AP Story:
>>The president’s statement was incorrect because it was based on forged documents from the African nation of Niger, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer acknowledged.
Can’t get more any more identifiable a White House source, can you?
>>The sole relevant source for the entire story has been discredited.
So you’re saying this fraud Wilkinson was the “White House source”? He was passing himself off as a “CIA contract consultant”, not a White House official.
Thompson’s editorial says:
>>On Tuesday, we ran a story headlined “White House admits Bush wrong about Iraqi nukes.” For the first time, Wilkinson said he was willing to go on the record and told a story about being present, as a CIA contract consultant, at two briefings with Bush. He said he was retired now and was fed up and wanted to go public.
>>After the story ran, we received a number of emails or phone calls that (1) either claimed Wilkinson was lying or (2) doubted his existence.
Nowhere in the story they have posted (which is identical to the AP Wire story on SFGate.com save for the first sentence) is this guy Wilkinson named as a source. Why did all these people that called Capitol Hill Blue guess Wilkinson was involved?
This just doesn’t make any sense, here. The conclusions being drawn aren’t supported by any facts I’ve seen…
July 10th, 2003 at 11:01 am
Ok, after getting over to Bubba’s site I see he’s saying essentially the same thing I am, so I’ll hush and let him handle it.
July 10th, 2003 at 11:12 am
We see what Ari acknowledged but what did he say?
I would have no trouble believing that the story may be correct if there were more evidence but the sources are dubious and, of course, were non-attributed.
July 10th, 2003 at 1:55 pm
There’s a difference between relying on bad information and lying. You’ll note that the Capitol Hill Blue article said it had removed any quotes by this con man from the original article. Evidently the original had additions to the AP article. Like this quote:
“He (Bush) said that if the current operatives working for the CIA couldn’t prove the story was true, then the agency had better find some who could,” Wilkinson said in our story. “He said he knew the story was true and so would the world after American troops secured the country.”
It isn’t there now, and it DOES imply that Bush lied. That quote has now been removed from their story.
Bush and Blair relied on bad information but there’s no proof that they lied. Ok?