Timing is all

Glenn Reynolds, once again, is confused.

THE REAL WILSON SCANDAL: Forget Valerie Plame, the big scandal is why anyone in the Bush Administration would ever have tasked a guy with Wilson’s views with an important mission.

If you follow the link, you’ll find Bill Hobbs ranting about a speech Joseph Wilson gave on June 14th, 2003. The very perceptive among us will notice that June 14th is somewhat later than the date on which Wilson went to Niger to look into the yellowcake assertions.

Let’s say you went to Niger to investigate claims that Niger sold yellowcake to Iraq, and you found out that the claims were false. You made a report to that effect. Despite your report, Bush kept claiming that Niger sold yellowcake to Iraq. It became an important component of his justification for war, and you knew it was a lie. It further became evident that the remainder of Bush’s allegations concerning WMD were inaccurate.

Might your views change?

What’s more likely: that Bush chose an investigator who was deeply and fundamentally biased, or that Joseph Wilson altered his opinions in light of the way his report was treated?

It kind of boggles me, in either case, that Reynolds could claim with a straight face that views Wilson expressed on June 16th, 2003 were a good reason to not send him to Niger in 2002.