The scandal soufflé

Here’s the superb Michael Barone with “Bush Bashing Fizzles”:

Now the unsupported charges that "Bush lied" about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have been rekindled via criticism of Karl Rove. A key witness for the Democrats and mainstream media was former diplomat Joseph Wilson. Unfortunately for his advocates, he turned out to be a liar. A year after his famous article appeared in The New York Times in July 2003 accusing Bush of "twisting" intelligence, the Senate Intelligence Committee, in a bipartisan report, concluded that Wilson lied when he said his wife had nothing to do with his dispatch to Niger, and Chairman Pat Roberts said that his report bolstered rather than refuted the case that Saddam Hussein's Iraq sought to buy uranium in Africa. So despite the continuing credulousness of much of the press, it appears inconceivable at this point that Karl Rove will be charged with violating the law prohibiting disclosure of the names of undercover agents. The case against Rove -- ballyhooed by recent Time and Newsweek cover stories that paid little heed to the discrediting of Wilson -- seems likely to end not with a bang but a whimper.

This past weekend, former CIA agent Larry C. Johnson gave the Democratic radio address and he criticized President Bush for failing to fire Karl Rove. You may recall Johnson from his July 2001 New York Times article: “The Declining Terrorist Threat.” (Quoth Taranto: “If this is the attitude that prevailed in the foreign-policy establishment before Sept. 11, we begin to get an inkling of how America might have been caught unawares.”)