July 15, 2004
Ann Coulter

Wilson lied, kids died!

 Another high-profile John Kerry supporter was outed as a nutcase this
week: Joseph C. Wilson IV, the Walter Mitty of conspiracy theorists.
Wilson is the ne'er-do-well WASP embraced by the Democrats last year
for calling Bush a liar. Wilson claimed to be shocked, appalled,
alarmed when President Bush said during his 2003 State of the Union
address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein
recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Wilson was shocked because, in 2002, he had been sent on an unpaid
make-work job to Niger to "investigate" whether Saddam Hussein had
tried to buy uranium ore from Niger. Wilson's method of investigating
consisted of asking African potentates questions like: Did you commit
a horrible crime, which, if so, would ruin your country's relationship
with the United States? I have no independent means of corroborating
this, so be honest!

On the basis of the answers he got, Wilson concluded that Saddam had
not sought uranium ore from Niger. Since "Africa" means "Niger" and
"British intelligence" means "Joseph Wilson," Wilson realized in
horror that Bush's statement referred to Wilson's very own report! Out
of love for his country and an insatiable desire to have someone
notice his worthless existence, Wilson wrote an op-ed in The New York
Times calling Bush a liar.

The whole story was already nutty enough to be believed by every
columnist at The New York Times. But then journalist Robert Novak
revealed that Clown Wilson had been sent as an unpaid intern to Niger
by his wife, a chair-warmer at the CIA who apparently wanted to get
him out of the house. This in turn provoked our own Walter Mitty to
accuse Karl Rove of outing his wife as an undercover "spy" in
retaliation for his attacks on the Bush administration. (And P. Diddy
told me Britney Spears is out to get me! I'm a spy too!)

In response to Wilson's crazy behavior, he was made an adviser to the
Kerry campaign. He was also fawned over by Vanity Fair magazine,
embraced by Democratic senators like Jon Corzine of New Jersey, hailed
as a patriot in The New York Times, awarded The Nation magazine's
"Award for Truth-Telling" and given a lucrative book contract.

According to The Washington Post, Wilson began wiling away his
once-empty days discussing "who would play (his wife) in the movie"
and fantasizing about how his obituary would read. His favorites were:
"Joseph C. Wilson IV, the Bush I administration political appointee
who did the most damage to the Bush II administration ..." and "Joseph
C. Wilson IV, the husband of the spy the White House outed ..."

I'm not sure we were waiting for any more evidence on whether Wilson
was an idiot, but this week we found out he's a liar, too. The Senate
report on the CIA's intelligence gathering concluded that, contrary to
Wilson's statements about his own report, his findings had bolstered
rather than undermined the case that Saddam had sought uranium from
Niger.

Most amusingly, despite Wilson's insistence that he had been tapped
for the Niger trip based on his nonexistent expertise and zero
credentials, the Senate committee produced his wife's memo
recommending her husband for the (unpaid) job. This followed Wilson's
assertions that his wife "definitely had not proposed that I make the
trip" and his astonishment that anyone could imagine his wife was
"somehow involved in this," saying that "just defies logic."

When presented with the memo from his wife recommending him for the
job, Wilson said only that his wife was not the one who made the
decision to send him to Niger. This cleared up the matter for anyone
who had been under the impression Wilson was married to George Tenet.

As an aside, I note that the main point of the Senate report was to
slam the agency for its Mickey Mouse intelligence gathering on weapons
of mass destruction. Guess what Wilson's wife does at the CIA? That's
right! She gathers intelligence on weapons of mass destruction! No
wonder she claims to be "undercover." Her fantasist husband calls the
incompetent CIA paper-pusher "Jane Bond." (I'm an astronaut!)

The implicit deal the government has always had with worthless, rich
WASPs is they get trivial, make-work jobs with the Foreign Service so
they can go around calling themselves "diplomats"; but the trade-off
is, they're not supposed to make fools of themselves or commit
treason. It's not that high a hurdle. Unlike the Ivy League WASPs of
yesteryear, at least worthless WASPs from the lower-ranked schools
like Wilson have, thus far, managed to avoid treason. Merely being an
ass shouldn't cause many problems for the country - except that: One
political party embraced the ass.

Wilson is an "unpaid foreign affairs adviser" to the Kerry campaign.
(In yet another testament to the wisdom of the market, all Wilson's
"jobs" seem to be unpaid.) Indeed, Wilson's website, denouncing the
perfidy of the Bush administration, was created and paid for by "John
Kerry for President." (Why haven't any crack investigative journalists
noticed that?)

This may explain why Kerry was boasting about foreign leaders
supporting him earlier this year: He was trying to distract voters
from the fact that his strongest base of support in the United States
consists of lonely fantasists hoping to make some new friends.