In response

Reader JPE responded to yesterday's quip about Joe Wilson. His comment reads:

The op-ed doesn't claim Cheney sent Wilson. Unless lack of reading comprehension is part of being smart now, the post title is a bit misleading.

Well, not so fast.

Granted, since we're talking about a time-frame of two plus years we have the advantage of multiple-sources. As Jonah pointed out earlier in the day at the Corner, the initial assumption that Wilson is saying he was sent by the VP's office is just that--an assumption made based on a reading of his op-ed.

What was Wilson saying to other reporters in '03? Jonah points to Nick Kristoff's mea-culpa in May that year:

I left out the fact that Wilson told Nick Kristoff (Kristoff later admitted it) that Cheney was behind Wilson's trip to Africa. That's the context of Wilson's own op-ed. Here's what Kristoff wrote on May 6, 2003:

I'm told by a person involved in the Niger caper that more than a year ago the vice president's office asked for an investigation of the uranium deal, so a former U.S. ambassador to Africa was dispatched to Niger. In February 2002, according to someone present at the meetings, that envoy reported to the C.I.A. and State Department that the information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had been forged.