Sweetness & Light reviews Joseph Wilson's statements in the months before and after May of 2003 and finds, as I have, that there was a substantial shift in Ambassador Munchausen's tale. Why did his story change so substantially?

One clue is the Democratic Senate Policy Committee's May 2 meeting, which Wilson attended along with Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times:

In early May, Wilson and Plame attended a conference sponsored by the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, at which Wilson spoke about Iraq; one of the other panelists was the New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof.

This appears to be the very first time Wilson ever mentioned his trip to Niger in public. That is, he must have said something about it to pique Kristof's interest on the subject:

Over breakfast the next morning with Kristof and his wife, Wilson told about his trip to Niger and said Kristof could write about it, but not name him. At this point what he wanted, Wilson says, was for the government to correct the record. "I felt that on issues as important to our whole society as sending our sons and daughters to kill and die for our national security we as a society and our government have a responsibility to our people to ensure that the debate is carried out in a way that reflects the solemnity of the decision being taken," he says.

Kristof's column appeared on May 6.

Kristof's column was the first time Wilson's re—telling of his trip Niger ever appeared in print, albeit anonymously.

The records of that meeting have been curiously expunged from the Committee's site.

The Committee's next meeting still is online and shows us where the Senate Democrats were heading:

However, a few months later this same Senate Democratic Policy Committee conference would be taking up the weighty issue of the "outing" of Joe Wilson's wife by a vindictive administration. [This page has disappeared from the committee's website, but is preserved at S&L. —ed]

It is a testament to the committee's desire for truth that they happened to call before them three members of Ray McGovern's crackpot Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

The mission of VIPS is to encourage intelligence officers to break their oaths and the law, and leak secrets to hurt our efforts in Iraq and our national security in general.

Do you think Wilson's appearance before the Committee in May and the shift in his story was a coincidence? Do you think the Rockefeller memo to (mis)use his position on the Committee for partisan purposes was the beginning of his plan to unseat the President or the endgame?
 
Clarice Feldman   5 09 06