WaPo's Take on Fair Game

The Washington Post has gone as far to use it's editorial page to take to task the recently released Fair Game, the story of Joe and Valerie Plame Wilson.  The movie is based on the separate autobiographies of each.  WaPo has gone as far as to call the movie Hollywood Myth Making. 

The movie keeps up the pretense that it was President Bush and his administration that caused the problems that incurred after the outing of Plame's work with the CIA.  This simply isn't the case, it is very well known that Richard Armitage, an employee of the State Department, that was the source used by the late Robert Novak.  The movie uses actual footage of the players in the Bush administration to prove it's point. 

While I am not going to diminish what happened to the Wilson family after that article was written, it seems that the Wilson's still take no responsibility for their part in it.  The reason it became the talk of the day is because Wilson himself made it a mega media item.  At the beginning Wilson had no way of knowing that the leaker had the same view of the war on Iraq that he had. 

What is very sad about this type of movie making is that this will become the belief of many people.  All too often we find that people will watch a movie that is "based on the true story" and do no further research on the subject.  The movie allows viewers to still see Scooter Libby as the bad guy instead of the fall guy that is reality. 

While this doesn't really come as a surprise since many myths still exist on the war in Iraq.  The meme still exists that Bush lied his way into the war.  Most of that narrative is just about covering your ass by politico's on the left that not only voted to allow the use of force but also made public statements that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.  They further this by misleading people to believe that it was well-known that WMD didn't exist.  The reality is not that other countries believed that weapons didn't exist, they felt that Saddam was "contained", whatever that meant. 

Regardless of where you fall on our intervention in Iraq the facts are the facts.  I personally never had a strong opinion on the war.  I could see both sides.  Saddam was a very bad man who ruled his people with an iron fist, but so are many other dictators around the world.  So, why take out him and leave others?  We had a chance after the first gulf war to help the Iraqi people stage an uprising that could have led to a coup.  The first President Bush balked and walked away and many were killed because of his inaction.  If we were unwilling then, why do it now?  That was one of the things that went into thought process during the lead up to the war.  But, if a democracy can take hold in that part of the world, we will all be safer. 

While I have a great deal of sympathy for the disruption that Novak's column caused the Wilson's lives, I don't think that allows them to rewrite history.  I applaud WAPO for taking that head on.  Sadly, if the comments at the end of the article are any indication it won't change the views of those on the left.  But, for journalistic integrity those falsehoods had to be confronted.  No matter how inconvenient it is for the left, the reality is that Saddam wanted the world to be believe that he had weapons.  What we all should be up in arms about is why our intelligence is not better. 


Cross posted at PotLuck