[rrpjr]

Unlike in the case of Mr. Libby, the public has its own evidence of Mr. Wilson's falsehoods.

He wrote in his own book that his wife had nothing to do with his brief and inconclusive visit to Niger: "Valerie had nothing to do with the matter."

We now know his wife recommended him to her deputy chief, for no better reason than all "his French contacts."

Additionally, he claimed to the Washington Post that "dates and names were wrong" in documents not even in CIA hands until 8 months after his trip.

He also claimed Niger's yellowcake was never a subject of interest to Hussein's Iraq agents. In fact, according to the national security correspondent of the Financial Times (which is critical of Tony Blair), Niger's ministers (who Wilson boasted he knew so well) had been in communication with Iran, North Korea, Libya and Iraq over the disposition of yellowcake.

This hero to the far-left is a man whose word is effectively worthless.

Let them have him. Time will wash it all out, the counterfeit outrage of a publicity-starved poseur, a self-admitted "child of the 60s" who despises George Bush and who rushes back from "classified" assignments thrown to him by his wife to publish fallacious op-eds in the NY Times.

The only scandal here in this otherwise non-story of an administration which responded to lies by, at worst, clumsily disclosing the truth in its own self-defense, is that such a man could be fawned over by so many.