Jonah on Joe and Valerie

24Mar07

Jonah Goldberg is an editor at large for the National Review, and has been conducting a relentless attack on both Valerie Plame, the outed CIA agent, and her retired diplomat husband Joseph Wilson.  This article is a rebuttal to Jonah’s piece posted here:  http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MmYxNTAyNTZlNjllNmQ2MzZlYjA1YzJlM2U3M2MyMjY=

I know,  name calling, innuendo,  smug tones, and character assasination are innappropriate responses to staid editorials such as Jonah Goldberg’s on the Wilsons, even when that is the principal style, method, and content of his attack on them.

What was clearly absent from Goldberg’s swift boating of “Val” and her pal “Joe” were any substantive facts other than innuendos and a regurgitation of the principal talking points against Wilson, i.e.,  that poor “unemployed” Joe really needed a junket trip to beautiful Niger, and that Joe lied when he [allegedly] said that Cheney requested he go when the real “truth” was that his wife arranged it.   

But who wants to deal with facts.  If you want those, just see Media Matters for a complete debunking of  those very consistently delivered talking points that have been bouncing around right wing circles and Faux News for several years.  Repeat them often enough, and they become true:  presto. 

Enough!  Let’s get to Jonah’s real issue:  the Wilson’s look cool,  they write books,  he probably surfs,  she likes high heels and looks good in a Jag, she was covert CIA (why else would the CIA request an investigation of her outing), and oh by the way,  other than being a retired Ambassador of the United States, he has that really cool commendation from George H.W. Bush (Senior) for personally standing up to Saddam Hussein in the first gulf war thus saving about 100 US citizens from an unknown fate.  Somehow Jonah,  I just can’t imagine you in any of those situations, especially the Jag.   

Unlike Jonah,  I would like to end with a fact:  Joe Wilson was right.  The administration certainly was “exaggerating the Iraqi threat” in order to justify war.” Jonah,  you were wrong.   How’s that for a fact? 

Rich Brock, Resipsa

(Note:  an edited version of this article was published in the LA Times)

Filed under: Current Events, Politics, brock, constitutional law, iraq, law, middle east, res ipsa loquitur, resipsa   |  Leave a Comment