AAARRRGH!

Instapundit links to Mark Steyn on the Valerie Plame outing and says “Read the whole thing.” So, I read the whole thing, and I found one of the most intellectually dishonest pieces I’ve read since… since Monday or so.

It’s another “Isn’t the real issue…” piece. In this case, the “real issue” is why Wilson was sent to Niger.

Steyn says:

An agency known to be opposed to war in Iraq sent an employee’s spouse also known to be opposed to war in Iraq on a perfunctory joke mission.

Wilson went to Niger in February 2002. The war in Iraq was just a twinkle in the administration’s eye. The war in Afghanistan (which Wilson supported) had recently finished. Bush made his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, in which he named Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the “Axis of Evil”. He had not approached Congress, the United Nations, or the American people for support of a war on Iraq. The push wouldn’t come for a few months.

I’ve been following this story pretty closely. If anyone could find a statement from Wilson opposing the war on Iraq prior to his trip to Niger in Feb. 2002, I daresay that I would have heard about it. I’ll be embarassed if I’m wrong, so please go ahead and embarass me.

Here’s some information that Steyn thinks the reader has no need to know when answering the confusing, confusing question “Why was Wilson sent to Niger?”:

* The only defense of Bush’s “16 words” is that Bush said Africa, not Niger, and he was relying on British intelligence. No one denies that Wilson was right– Niger didn’t sell yellowcake to Iraq. All of the complaints about him tend to ignore this fact. David Kay’s report backs this up.
* Wilson was a former diplomat in Niger.
* He worked in Africa from 1976 to 1988. Other African assignments include Togo, South Africa, Burundi, the Congo, and the State Department Bureau of African Affairs.
* From 1988 to 1991, he served in Baghdad as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy. During “Desert Shield” he was the acting Ambassador. He was the last official American to meet with Saddam Hussein before the launching of “Desert Storm.”
* He was responsible for the negotiations that resulted in the release of several hundred American hostages. He helped evacuate thousands of foreigners from Kuwait, negotiated the release of more than 120 American hostages and sheltered nearly 800 Americans in the embassy compound.
* For his role in these negotiations, George H.W. Bush wrote to him, “Your courageous leadership during this period of great danger for American interests and American citizens has my admiration and respect. I salute, too, your skillful conduct of our tense dealings with the government of Iraq. The courage and tenacity you have exhibited throughout this ordeal prove that you are the right person for the job.”
* Wilson’s mission in Niger wasn’t a joke. The story resists a cute soundbite like “drinking sweet mint tea”, but he looked at the safeguards that surround Niger’s uranium industry and concluded that the alleged sale couldn’t have taken place. Start on page 14 and read.
* Wilson’s report wasn’t the only one from Niger. There was also the Ambassador’s report, and a report from “a four-star Marine Corps general.”

No, what’s relevant is Wilson’s hairstyle. It’s kind of long, you see.

Steyn’s piece is larded with Wilson-bashing, as is the style at the time. Great stuff, like “Wilson comes over like a total flake — not a sober striped-pants diplomat but a shaggy-maned ideologically driven kook whose hippie-lyric quotes make a lot more sense than his neocon-bashing diatribes for leftie dronefests like the Nation.” Steyn doesn’t point out the little-known loophole in the law that makes it legal to release the identity of undercover agents if they have a liberal spouse. I guess it speaks for itself.

When Clifford May said that everyone knew about Plame, he at least had the excuse of ignorance. Mark Steyn has no such excuse when he writes,” Even if you accept that it’s technically possible to leak something that’s widely known around town…” It wasn’t widely known around town. Her relatives didn’t know. He neighbors didn’t know. The CIA asked for a formal investigation, and Bush himself called it “a very serious matter”. It’s hard to giggle this off, but I’m impressed at the effort.

He slips in “and published in the guy’s Who’s Who entry” as if the name “Valerie Plame” is the secret. Smart people who play stupid are extremely irritating. One more time:

“There is a person named Valerie Plame”- not a secret
“There is a person named Valerie Plame who works for the CIA”- big honking secret.

Steyn pretends not to understand why the Administration would want to discredit Wilson by revealing the identity of his wife; he argues that this information actually enhances his credibility. It doesn’t matter whether you think it was a good idea: obviously it wasn’t, but it happened. Novak himself says that he got the information from two senior Administration officials.

Steyn criticizes the NY Times for a headline that says that he “What I Didn’t Find in Africa”, when Wilson only visited Niger. Then he says,

One alleged colleague says he’s worked with her for 30 years, which seems unlikely, as she’s only 40 and if the Company was that good at spotting early talent it would be in a lot better shape.

Steyn seems to be questioning the integrity of Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst, FOX News commentator, and registered Republican. No surprises there. But Johnson said “three decades”, not 30 years. 80s, 90s, 00s. No mystery.

Finally, Steyn says,

But her time as a NOC looks to have ended five years ago

Says who? If Steyn has access to the records of NOC CIA staff, someone should take it away immediately. If not, he’s just speculating.

Steyn does not improve his credibility when he says “the rogue State Department” is “acting like a wholly-owned subsidiary of the House of Saud”. He does not enhance his credibility by saying of Wilson, “Imagine Michael Moore and his ego after dropping 300lbs on the Atkins diet and you’re close enough.” He does not enhance his credibility when he lists the terrorists’ forces as “the Western media, the UN and the moth-eaten French pantomime mule of Messrs Chirac and de Villepin.”

Mark Steyn, everybody. This is what we’ve come to.