NYT Ignores The Big Fact About Scandal Everyone Should Know: Bush Lied

The MSM is proving bizarrely insistent on ignoring the single most important fact surrounding RoveGate, the one fact that explains why the White House went to such extremes to scorch-earth Joe Wilson for coming forward. What's that fact? Joe Wilson spoke the truth and Bush admitted it. The NYT is running a timeline of the scandal, including an intense breakdown of the nine crucial days when Wilson came forward. Here's the TPM breakdown of the events on July 7, 2003.

Though it covers the story from almost every possible angle, the NYT timeline omits one crucial fact: Joe Wilson was right. On July 7, 2003 -- the day after Wilson came forward and said Bush shouldn't have included in the State of the Union speech a rumour about Iraq trying to get uranium in Africa -- the White House called major media outlets (including the NYT) and in effect admitted Wilson was right. They no longer stood by those 16 words, one of the central pillars in their argument for going to war.

Isn't it germane to this story that Bush immediately caved on the central point Wilson was making -- even though this meant abandoning a crucial argument for taking this country to war? This should be front and center in every MSM story about this scandal. It's mentioned in almost none of them. This isn't just some obscure scandal about pettiness and politics and leaks. No. This is about Bush lying to the country during the State of the Union address. Tell them this at letters@nytimes.com.