Washington Post: The liar was Joe Wilson

At least, that's the way the right wing DallasBlog decided to headline its spin of an editorial by the Washington Post. The Post's editorial itself was headlined neutrally: "End of an Affair". Its lead referred to, not Ambassador Joe Wilson, but Richard Armitage: "It turns out that the person who exposed CIA agent Valerie Plame was not out to punish her husband." It explains that it was Mr Armitage who first disclosed CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to reporter Robert Novak. The Post goes on to blame Vice President Cheney and his chief-of-staff Scooter Libby for carelessness in the handling of classified information in their efforts to discredit Joe Wilson, who had claimed that intelligence about Iraq had been twisted to make the case for war. Only in its last paragraph does the Washington Post spread some of the blame to Joe Wilson himself, for going public with his charges. Ultimately, the charges proved false and going public resulted in the disclosure of his wife's role.

So, that's the story. The Washington Post pretty much plays it straight. Its conclusion is that there is blame enough to go around. It concludes that the Bush administration, rather than hatching an evil plot, was instead merely incompetent. It began with a desire by Cheney, Libby, and Rove to discredit Wilson, led to carelessness with classified information, and instinctively descended into stonewalling and lying under oath.

You would not learn any of this reading the DallasBlog. In its version of the story, the Washington Post concludes that "THE LIAR WAS JOE WILSON". Despite DallasBlog's claim to present "News and Viewpoints", the blog posts are commonly viewpoints presented as news. Even the Washington Post editorial, clearly presented as viewpoint, not news, does better at presenting the facts. The DallasBlog might be a halfway decent right wing blog, but it is an embarrassment as a news source.