Talequah Daily Press Editorial on the Mark

Kudos to the editorialist at the Talequah Daily Press who penned today's editorial. This small-town editorial (pop. 14,500-15,000) about the Valerie Plame leak is better than anything I've seen from big city editors.

Here's an excerpt:

Someone in this equation is destined to turn out stupid: The administration, for expecting the public to swallow this fish tale, or the public, for doing just that.

If the leaked information was declassified by the administration so Libby and others could hand it over to the media, then why didn't they just say so to begin with? Why did they lie and say they knew nothing about it? Or, is McClellan the liar in this case?

To buy any of this, the public will have to suffer not just from pathological stupidity, but also from terminal amnesia. We'll have to forget that Ms. Plame's name only became public after her husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson, disclosed that he could find no evidence of weapons of destruction in Iraq. We'll also have to forget that several subsequent investigations have vindicated Wilson -- which means the "declassified information" was completely erroneous, or a complete fabrication.

Regardless of what the Bush people call it, the "intelligence" was propelled forward on zeal for vendetta and a war of predestination to topple Saddam Hussein. Someday the truth will out, as well it should. It's gotten an awful lot of people killed.