Blogs and Stories
Push Cheney
Joseph C. Wilson IV, who served in the U.S. Foreign Service for 23 years and is married to Valerie Plame, the covert CIA officer unmasked by Bush administration officials, on watching the end of eight years of “radical rule.”
Having been intimately involved in the debate against the second Gulf War and having endured the vicious character assassination campaign of the Bush administration and the right-wing echo chamber, I fully expected to be elated by the fin de regne of the radical rule we have endured over the past eight years Indeed, a number of friends and acquaintances had gleefully written to suggest that Dick Cheney’s back problems were a result of his moving documents related to his role in betraying the identity of my wife, Valerie, a covert CIA officer. And I had tears in my eyes as I realized the historic consequence of the investiture of the first black president of the United States of America, and the hope it represents even as we face difficult circumstances.
A number of friends had gleefully written to suggest that Cheney’s back problems were a result of his moving documents related to his role in betraying my wife’s identity.
But the departure of the Bush-Cheney administration and the neoconservative clique that owned the foreign policy that did so much harm to our standing in the world was anti-climatic, even for one, like me, so immersed in the fights of that time. Today is a day to celebrate the history of our nation, warts and all. It is a day to be reminded, as we are every four years, of the sanctity of our republic, and its consecration in the peaceful transfer of power. Most of all, it is a day that helped us realize the vision of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal,” the intent of the Emancipation Proclamation and the Fourteenth Amendment, the dream of the Civil Rights movement, and the commitment of the Voting Rights Act and other legislation from that time. This day the Obamas have made us all proud.
Joseph C. Wilson IV served for 23 years in the U.S. Foreign Service, including as Ambassador to Gabon and Sao Tome and Principe, and as acting Ambassador to Iraq during the first Gulf War under President George H.W. Bush, and as senior director for African Affairs at the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton. After publication of his article, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa,” in The New York Times debunking the Bush administration’s rationale for the Iraq War, his wife’s identity as a covert CIA office was betrayed by senior administration officials. He is also the author of The Politics of Truth.
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Martin Jacques is the cofounder of the UK think tank Demos, writes a regular column for The Guardian, and is a visiting research fellow at the London School of Economics Asia Research Centre. His new book, When China Rules the World, is available now.
Going Rogue: The Index
Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
Come Out of Hiding, Bush
Joseph C. Wilson IV served for 23 years in the US Foreign Service, including as Ambassador to Gabon and Sao Tomé and Principe. After publication of his article, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa,” in the New York Times debunking the Bush administration’s rationale for the Iraq War, his wife’s identity as a covert CIA office was betrayed by senior administration officials. He is also the author of The Politics of Truth.
Dick Cheney's Torture Hypocrisy
Joseph C. Wilson IV served for 23 years in the US Foreign Service, including as Ambassador to Gabon and Sao Tomé and Principe. After publication of his article, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa,” in the New York Times debunking the Bush administration’s rationale for the Iraq War, his wife’s identity as a covert CIA office was betrayed by senior administration officials. He is also the author of The Politics of Truth.
Joe Wilson, still living in a deluded self-fulfilling fantasyworld.
You are a legend in your own mind. Anyone who bothered to look beyond the MSM's shoddy reporting knows that what became known as the "Valerie Plame Affair" was complete nonsense. You're media manufactured 15 minutes were over years ago. You are a nobody.
Free Scooter Libby
Joe Wilson outed Valerie Plame.
Perhaps the end of Bush and Cheney is the end as well of brazen duplicity, the vanquishing of moral authority, the infidelity to science, the institutionalization of greed and hoarding as virtues, the sanctimonious idolatry of the economy, the degradation of the environment, the dissipation of natural resources, the destruction of Earth as fit place for habitation by our children.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on the Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1176
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/index.php
www.panearth.org
Did anyone else think Cheney looked alot like Mr. Potter from "It's a Wonderful Life"????
Ambassador Wilson, perhaps for you, this was an anti-climax. I can tell you that for me and for many others, I could not breathe easy until 12 noon yesterday had passed and we truly had a new President. The Bush people were more than a clique, they were a cabal, put into power extra-legally by our Supreme Court. One might even have called it a coup d'etat. I believe that the revelation of your wife's role in the CIA was treason and that everyone involved could still be prosecuted for that crime along with many others. I am so grateful that we have a new President and a beautiful and intelligent new first family who speaks to all of us and to the best in all of us to come together to help fix the damage that has been allowed to be done to this good country. I am also grateful, Ambassador Wilson, for your good work and for that of your wife. I wish you and your family peace and serenity for now and the future.
Holiday,
Get a grip! A) Valerie Plame Wilson was outed by the Bush Administration as the facts of the case and the conviction of "Scooter" bore out. B) Even though he was convicted, the criminal is free so get over it and move on. This piece was not about recrimination (although it legitimately could have been); it was about reconciliation and moving on. Try it.
Holiday should be prohibited from making comments on this blog. Take a .........holiday, Holiday.
"charlow1" summed it up well!
The Valerie Plame story is alive and well. Joe Wilson writes specifically about his friends joking about Cheney's back, har har, in this article, entitled 'Push Cheney'. He invites comments in doing so. Where is the reconciliation?
Richard Armitage has commented about the Plame story to Bob Woodward, and stated many times that Joe talked openly about his wife being a CIA officer. Armitage is on record apologizing for mentioning Valerie Plame's status, that he assumed was common knowledge.
The Valerie Plame story will be with Joe Wilson whatever he does in life.
Joe, I'm sorry for what Scooter did to your wife, as are all thinking, caring Americans . It is obvious to us all that he was simply taking orders from Cheney, who will never be punished for all the horrible things he was allowed to do by a weak president. The Bush/Cheney administration will go down in history now and forever more as the most corrupt, worse managed. They will have to live (and die) with that. You have history and right on your side.
FastMovingCloud, do you think an article entitled 'Push Cheney' is about reconciliation? This article is topical. Richard Armitage is on record as having stated openly that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent. He thought it was common knowledge, because Joe had often said as much. Armitage has apologized many times for this. He told Robert Novak about her status.
Reading Mr. Wilson's well-written exhortations, we almost take it to heart but with his conclusion we see that for him and perhaps most, this election really was--all about race.
Very informative. While I am not one of those pushing for members of the Bush Administration to be prosecuted for war crimes (it is a distraction) I do think Cheney is the exception. Personally I think he hurt his back moving the minutes of thosesecret meetings with the oil companies.
soooo....Holiday, the process by which scooter was "convicted" is flawed, or.....?
Suggested name change for "Holiday"...
Holiday (from Reality)
Wouldn't that be poetic, if those really were the Plame documents Cheney was removing when he hurt his back. I wish him a speedy recovery anyway. He'll need all his strength for the hopefully upcoming investigations.
Is it just me, or does that picture of Dick in wheelchair look like the malicious Mr. Potter in It's A Wonderful Life.
Thank you.
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