And now for a slight detour over to the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson/Scooter Libby/Dick Cheney/Niger Yelowcake scandal.

Sometimes you just have to laugh to keep from crying:

Washington Post Editoral
Sunday, April 9, 2006

Mr. Wilson subsequently claimed that the White House set out to punish him for his supposed whistle-blowing by deliberately blowing the cover of his wife, Valerie Plame, who he said was an undercover CIA operative. This prompted the investigation by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald. After more than 2 1/2 years of investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald has reported no evidence to support Mr. Wilson's charge.

Front page Washington Post Article,
Sunday, April 9, 2006; Page A01

A 'Concerted Effort' to Discredit Bush Critic
Prosecutor Describes Cheney, Libby as Key Voices Pitching Iraq-Niger Story

By Barton Gellman and Dafna Linzer

As he drew back the curtain this week on the evidence against Vice President Cheney's former top aide, Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald for the first time described a "concerted action" by "multiple people in the White House" -- using classified information -- to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" a critic of President Bush's war in Iraq.

Bluntly and repeatedly, Fitzgerald placed Cheney at the center of that campaign. Citing grand jury testimony from the vice president's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Fitzgerald fingered Cheney as the first to voice a line of attack that at least three White House officials would soon deploy against former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.

But wait, there's more...

Post Editorial

The material that Mr. Bush ordered declassified established, as have several subsequent investigations, that Mr. Wilson was the one guilty of twisting the truth. In fact, his report supported the conclusion that Iraq had sought uranium.

Oh, really?

Post Article

Cheney, in a conversation with Libby in early July 2003, was said to describe Wilson's CIA-sponsored trip to Niger the previous year -- in which the envoy found no support for charges that Iraq tried to buy uranium there -- as "a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife," CIA case officer Valerie Plame.

Also finding no evidence that Iraq tried to buy uranium in Niger, according to the Washington Post article:

• United Nations inspectors
• A British parliamentary inquiry
• An October 2002 CIA National Intelligence Estimate
• Director of central intelligence George J. Tenet and his top weapons analyst, Robert Walpole
• The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research
• National Intelligence Council, the senior coordinating body for the 15 agencies that then constituted the U.S. intelligence community.
• The International Atomic Energy Agency

There's more, but you get the idea.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program.