Scribbling Monk

Recent bouts of Fauxtography in the mainstream press aren't an abberation. They're business as usual, at least for the last few years. Hezbollah and their fawning partisans, including photographers posing as photojournalists, have been passively facilitated in their efforts to control the global media message by the self-proclaimed gatekeeper editors of the mainstream media.

These same editors have more actively facilitated multiple lies by Joe Wilson regarding his assertions (lies) against President George W. Bush, his administration's pronounced reasons for going to war in Iraq and the supposed politically-motivated outing of his wife's identity as a supposed "undercover" CIA operative.

Two peas, Wilson and Hezbollah, in a mainstream media pod.

Lorie Byrd helps wrap up the Wilson/Plame fiasco at Townhall.com.

The Wilson fantasy was reported for years, as fact, in countless set up pieces to fawning interviews with Wilson. That reporting had very real consequences. It was Joe Wilson's claim that Bush lied about the “16 words” that started the "Bush lied" mantra. We now know that many of the claims that "Bush lied" were actually lies themselves, but that has gotten scant little attention.

Democrats have a page in their playbook that they use often and it works almost every time. Make an assertion, even when it is contradicted by facts (in this case by Novak's statement from day one) and then repeat it over and over again until it becomes conventional wisdom. When the facts emerge and it is clear that most, if not the entire thing, was a liberal fantasy, the damage will have been done and since the media was so instrumental in spreading the misinformation, they will call very little attention to the correction.

How true that last sentence is. Get your spin out front, loud and oft-repeated, and its "truth" will resound in spite of mumbled corrections.

Much to their credit, the Washington Post has published an editorial that turns the whole episode into an Emily Latella moment.

Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.

Is the Post referring to the journalists and editors who took Wilson seriously? Isn't it their job to be skeptical? That must be who they're referring to since they'd really have to exercise their civic responsibility to acknowledge the perhaps millions of Americans moved to political activism againt Bush and the war by the Plame fiasco. They certainly couldn't be referring to the millions of jihadists we're fighting who use reports of Wilson's fable and our internal discord to recruit new supporters.

When I was a small child my great aunt and great uncle took me to a farm in Pennsylvania where we'd occasionally pick fresh vegetables. I learned early on to tell the difference between edible and rotten peas. And if the pod was rotten, no sense even opening it for the peas.