What Wilson didn't say

Discerning Media Nation readers know that I am not an admirer of Joseph Wilson, the Bush administration critic married to former undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson. I think the incomparable Bob Somerby has been dispositive on the man he calls "the Honest Ambassador." Here is a good starting point.

Nevertheless, Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard pushed matters too far yesterday in talking about Wilson's mission to Niger, to which Wilson had been dispatched to learn whether Saddam Hussein had sought uranium. In an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," Hayes said:

HAYES: We have to remember, Joe Wilson came back, and when he went public, first anonymously then later with his name attached, claims that he had debunked forgeries that suggested an Iraq-Niger uranium deal, the chronology doesn't work. Wilson was in Niger in February of 2002. The U.S. government came into possession of those forgeries in October of 2002. He could not have done what he said he had done. So if you're in the White House at the time, why would you not say, "Gosh, who is this guy? Why is he saying these things that we know aren't true? And how do we fix this?"

Gosh, is that what Wilson said? That he "had debunked forgeries that suggested an Iraq-Niger uranium deal"? In fact, Hayes didn't even come close. Here is the full text of the famous Wilson op-ed piece that appeared in the New York Times on July 6, 2003. Wilson deals with the forgery claim in three parenthetical sentences. Don't blink, or you might miss it.

WILSON: As for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have pointed out that the documents had glaring errors - they were signed, for example, by officials who were no longer in government - and were probably forged. And then there's the fact that Niger formally denied the charges.

Wilson wasn't claiming to have debunked anything with respect to forged documents - he was merely citing news accounts that he saw long after he'd come home from his mission.

Sadly, host Tim Russert failed to correct Hayes.