WAPO WANKER

That would be Fred Hiatt, the editorial page editor. He recently made Atrios' "Wanker of the Day" for this editorial about the Libby trial. I didn't think much of the editorial until I heard Rusty Humphries praise it. Then I thought that Hiatt IS a wanker.

Hiatt neglects to tell us that the Bush Administration retracted the 16 words* in the 2003 SOTU that Mr. Wilson objected to but does assure us that Mr. Wilson is a "blowhard."

* "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. "

George Tenet, 7/11/2003, "These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the President. "

Stephen Hadley, 7/22/2003, "But the fact is that given the October 5 and 6 CIA memorandum, and my telephone conversation with the DCI Tenet at roughly the some time, I should have recalled at the time of the State of the Union speech that there was controversy associated with the uranium issue.
When the language in the drafts of the State of the Union referred to efforts to acquire natural uranium, I should have either asked that they -- the 16 words given to that subject be stricken, or I should have alerted DCI Tenet. And had I done so, this would have avoided the whole current controversy.

And in my current position, I am the senior most official within the NSC staff, directly responsible for the substantive review and clearance of presidential speeches. The President and the National Security Advisor look to me to ensure that the substantive statements in those speeches are the ones in which the President can have confidence. And it is now clear to me that I failed in that responsibility in connection with the inclusion of these 16 words in the speech that he gave on the 28th of January.

The National Security Advisor also wants, Condi wants it clearly understood that she feels a personal responsibility for not recognizing the potential problem presented by those 16 words. And we both agree that in permitting the inclusion of those words, the high standards that the President sets with his speeches were not met. "