As The Yellowcake Turns

An interesting deconstruction of Steno Sue Schmidt’s article in today’s Wapo by Josh Marshall. Typically, Schmidt spins the GOP case against Joe Wilson and it’s the usual mix of innuendo, bad legal reasoning and inside baseball she’s known for. And it will undoubtedly take its toll on Wilson’s reputation among the kewl kidz as Schmidt’s special brand of whorish writing usually does.

When you cut through all the suggestive blather, the main theme seems to be that Wilson lied about his wife recommending him for the job, which even non-kewl kid Kevin Drum believes shoots Wilson’s credibility all to hell.

Now, I realize that Robert Novak and the rest will be crowing about this as if they’ve just uncovered the Rosetta Stone, but I don’t get it and I never did. From the beginning, the main thrust of the Rove/Novak item (which for some reason the White House thought would blow Wilson out of the water) was that Plame got Wilson the unpaid assignment which was apparently evidence that he’s whipped by his macho secret agent wife and therefore can’t be believed. It never made any sense, but I can see that it’s going to be trotted out again as the ultimate gotcha and that everybody’s going to be running around chasing this story when it has nothing to do with anything and never did. What would her recommendation, (whether Wilson later lied about it or not) have to do with his report?

I thought Hollywood was bad with the infighting and obsession with gossip and juvenile power games. But, DC media take the cake. If the Democrats want to get with the program they’d better learn to feed the media tittilating gossip and silly trivia to keep them running in circles. Frame any situation as soap opera and you can get your version of events into the mainstream.