'Fair Game' and errors of fact

That new Valerie Plame movie is ridiculously inaccurate
In fact, “Fair Game,” based on books by Mr. Wilson and his wife, is full of distortions - not to mention outright inventions. To start with the most sensational: The movie portrays Ms. Plame as having cultivated a group of Iraqi scientists and arranged for them to leave the country, and it suggests that once her cover was blown, the operation was aborted and the scientists were abandoned. This is simply false. In reality, as The Post’s Walter Pincus and Richard Leiby repo...

WaPo Rips Plame Film: 'Full of Distortions' and 'Outright Inventions'
The editorial board of the Washington Post on Saturday ripped to shreds the factual authenticity of the new film about the Valerie Plame affair. The movie portrays Ms. Plame as having cultivated a group of Iraqi scientists and arranged for them to leave the country, and it suggests that once her cover was blown, the operation was aborted and the scientists were abandoned. This is simply false. In reality, as The Post's Walter Pincus and Richard Leiby reported, Ms. Plame did not work directly...

Joe Wilson-Valerie Plame and Hollywood, a marriage of liars
Posted by Paul at 8:38 PM The editors of the Washington Post blow the whistle on "Fair Game," the new movie that tries to glorify lying Socialites Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame. Wilson and Plame contend that the movie is "accurate." But, as the Post explains, it is not accurate as to Wilson: The movie portrays Mr. Wilson as a whistle-blower who debunked a Bush Administration claim that Iraq had tried to purchase Uranium from the African country of Niger. In fact, an investigation by the Senate i...

WaPo Rips Plame Film: 'Full of Distortions' and 'Outright Inventions'
The editorial board of the Washington Post on Saturday ripped to shreds the factual authenticity of the new film about the Valerie Plame affair. The movie portrays Ms. Plame as having cultivated a group of Iraqi scientists and arranged for them to leave the country, and it suggests that once her cover was blown, the operation was aborted and the scientists were abandoned. This is simply false. In reality, as The Post's Walter Pincus and Richard Leiby reported, Ms. Plame did not work directly...

Again with the yellowcake debate?
AGAIN WITH THE YELLOWCAKE DEBATE?.... I haven't yet seen "Fair Game," the critically-acclaimed film about Bush Administration officials outing CIA operative Valerie Plame, but the editorial board of the Washington Post apparently has. The editors apparently didn't like it. In a piece yesterday, the editorial board complains that the movie is "full of distortions -- not to mention outright inventions." I can't speak to this in any real detail without having seen it, and it doesn't surprise me w...

Washington Post: Hollywood's glorification of Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson is packed with falsehoods
I have to hand it to the Post on this one. This is a great example of an instance where people are not entitled to their own facts, and it's commendable that the Post noting in pretty explicit terms that Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson have a pronounced persecution complex coupled with delusions of grandeur: "It's accurate," Ms. Plame told The Post [about the movie Fair Game]. Said Mr. Wilson: "For people who have short memories or don't read, this is the only way they will remember that period." W...

Eight Years Later, Washington Post Still Defending the Saddam-Niger-Yellowcake Story
I’ve not seen the new film Fair Game, the story of how CIA agent Valerie Plame was outed by the Bush Administration by way of discrediting her husband Joe Wilson’s public contradiction of one of the administration’s multiple false claims on Iraqi WMD, so I can’t speak to how much it does or doesn’t play with the truth of what happened. The movie portrays Mr. Wilson as a whistle-blower who debunked a Bush Administration claim that Iraq had tried to purchase Uranium ...

Hollywood myth-making on Valerie Plame controversy
WE'RE NOT in the habit of writing movie reviews. But the recently released film "Fair Game" - which covers a poisonous Washington Controversy during the war in Iraq - deserves some editorial page comment, if only because of what its promoters are saying about it. The protagonists portrayed in the movie, former diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV and former spy Valerie Plame, claim that it tells the true story of their battle with the Bush Administration over Iraqi weapons of mass destructio...

Eight Years Later, Washington Post Still Defending the Saddam-Niger-Yellowcake Story
I’ve not seen the new film Fair Game, the story of how CIA agent Valerie Plame was outed by the Bush Administration by way of discrediting her husband Joe Wilson’s public contradiction of one of the administration’s multiple false claims on Iraqi WMD, so I can’t speak to how much it does or doesn’t play with the truth of what happened. The movie portrays Mr. Wilson as a whistle-blower who debunked a Bush Administration claim that Iraq had tried to purchase Uranium ...

Eight Years Later, Washington Post Still Defending The Saddam-Niger-Yellowcake Story
Eight Years Later, Washington Post Still Defending The Saddam-Niger-Yellowcake Story I’ve not seen the new film Fair Game, the story of how CIA agent Valerie Plame was outed by the Bush Administration by way of discrediting her husband Joe Wilson’s public contradiction of one of the administration’s multiple false claims on Iraqi WMD, so I can’t speak to how much it does or doesn’t play with the truth of what happened. This, however, from the Washington PostR...

Blast from the past
Following up on Dennis G’s post on Fred Hiatt’s bizarre Movie Review, it’s worth revisiting Josh Marshall’s take down of Hiatt’s original coverage of the Plame affair: The Post also sticks to the up-is-down claim that Wilson’s trip to Niger supported rather than undermined the Niger-uranium claim. That is a viewpoint that can only be maintained if you are willfully ignorant of the backstory to the Niger canard. Wilson’s report didn’t add a lot to...

Hollywood Rewrites Washington History and Even the Washington Post is Not Amused
This movie must be pretty far out there for the Washington Post to write this on their editorial page: WE'RE NOT in the habit of writing movie reviews. But the recently released film "Fair Game" - which covers a poisonous Washington Controversy during the war in Iraq - deserves some editorial page comment, if only because of what its promoters are saying about it. The protagonists portrayed in the movie, former diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV and former spy Valerie Plame, claim that it tells the t...

#rsrh WaPo/Plame: Man Bites Dog.
I mean, I knew right from the start that the movie that they made about Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame was going to be errant nonsense, but it’s a bit of a shock for the Washington Post to use up valuable editorial space to declare shenanigans.  After casually eviscerating the central premise and main narration of the movie, the WaPo forthrightly - and very accurately - calls Joe Wilson a lying suckweasel (I paraphrase): Hollywood has a habit of making movies about historical even...

David Horowitzs Archives: Party of Defeat
This article originally appeared at FrontPage Magazine, on June 4, 2008. Most conversations about the coming Elections focus on the question of which Candidate is most suited to lead the nation as it confronts the challenges and threats ahead. A better question would be to ask whether there is one party- the Democratic Party — which has demonstrated in word and deed that it is unfit to lead the nation in war at all. Criticism of government policy is essential to a Democracy. But in th...

WaPo Calls B.S. on Plame-Wilson Movie
Hollywood has a habit of making movies about historical events without regard for the truth; “Fair Game” is just one more example. But the film’s reception illustrates a more troubling trend of political Debates in Washington in which established facts are willfully ignored. Mr. Wilson claimed that he had proved that Mr. Bush deliberately twisted the truth about Iraq, and he was eagerly embraced by those who insist the former president lied the country into a war. Though it was...

Gerhard Schrder is a Hypocrite
They were all so hysterical about the US, with or without it's post-9-11 foreign policies, and so besotten with pandering to the constructed Bush-hatred in their electorates, that they will lie to save face, if needed, over their positions, statements and actions. Domino no. 1 is Gerhard Schröder, founding member of the axis of weasels. Intervening himself, indicating that there was a rather person sense of his convictions, the story goes on to report:Prior to the new year the German govern...

Republicans block tax cuts for middle class
President Barack Obama’s Republican foes in the Senate have blocked a move to let Bush-era Tax Cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire, rejecting in the process Democrats‘ efforts to extend those breaks just for the Middle Class. Obama said he was “very disappointed” at the vote. “It makes no sense to hold Tax Cuts for the middle class hostage to permanent Tax Cuts for the wealthiest two percent of Americans,” he added. In a rare weekend session that followed...

Yes, Virginia, It Would Be a Measurably Better World If the Washington Post Had Just Published Its Last Piece of Fishwrap
Why oh why can't we have a better Press Corps? What the Washington Post headline writers say about "Fair Game": Fair Game' gets some things about the Valerie Plame case right, some wrong What Walter Pincus and Richard Leiby say about "Fair Game": holds up as a thoroughly researched and essentially accurate account -- albeit with caveats... Walter should get a better gig--one that does not lie in its headlines about what the articles he writes say ...

Friday Animations--Bush Tax Cuts
by Linda Beale Friday Animations--Bush Tax Cuts crossposted with Ataxingmatter It might be worth reminding everbody about now that the Bush tax cuts were a poor idea even when they were first proposed. Like so much else done by the Bush Administration (and pushed by the right generally), they amounted to yet another means of redistributing from the have-less to the have-mores that Bush called his base. The following is a good animation depicting the interrelationship of distributional issue...

WaPo agrees: Plame movie trying to falsify history
I pointed out a few ways in Fair Game, the new movie based on Joe Wilson's and Valerie Plame's memoirs ignore facts inconvenient to their tale (mostly, that the leaker and the leaked-to both opposed the invasion of Iraq). Walter Pincus and Richard Leiby at the Post wrote this: The movie holds up as a thoroughly researched and essentially accurate account -- albeit with caveats. It's told from the point of view of Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame Wilson, upon whose separate memoirs the script is base...

Clinton Sets Agenda for Iranian Talks
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in New York City on Sept. 19, 2010. (State Department) (WALL STRET JOURNAL) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, addressing a regional security conference in Bahrain Friday, said she hoped Iranian negotiators would come to planned nuclear talks next week with the West committed to "constructive engagement." Clinton said Washington was still committed to negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, but that outreach to Tehran by President Barack...

Deadly Gossip
Dec 4, 2010, Vol. 16, No. 13 • By LEE SMITH Get alerts when there is a new article that might interest you. Many here in the United States have been quick to dismiss the significance of the State Department cables released by Wikileaks as little more than Foreign Policy gossip. Unfortunately, this is not how it’s playing in the rest of the world, particularly in the Middle East. In that Conspiracy Theory-rich region, nothing the Americans do is by accident. For instance, the Iraq War ...

Deadly Gossip
Dec 4, 2010, Vol. 16, No. 13 • By LEE SMITH Get alerts when there is a new article that might interest you. Many here in the United States have been quick to dismiss the significance of the State Department cables released by Wikileaks as little more than Foreign Policy gossip. Unfortunately, this is not how it’s playing in the rest of the world, particularly in the Middle East. In that Conspiracy Theory-rich region, nothing the Americans do is by accident. For instance, the Iraq War ...

WikiLeaks: Bank monitoring irked Europe
Published: Dec. 5, 2010 at 9:04 AM WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 (UPI) -- Europe quickly soured on a U.S. Counterterrorism program to electronically monitor banking transactions, diplomatic cables posted by Wikileaks said. The program was blocked by the European Parliament last winter, apparently due to mounting concerns in Europe about violations of Privacy rights and the possibility of economic Espionage against European companies. "Paranoia runs deep especially about US intelligence agencies," a secret ...

Bad Credit Puts U.S. At Foreign Policy Disadvantage
Foreign policy analysts and Diplomats alike are warning the U.S. to get its fiscal house in order or risk losing more influence on the world stage. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton describes the Debt as a National Security issue and wants to put development and Diplomacy on par with defense.  But her three-D approach faces two troublesome Ds: America's Debt and Deficit. "It does constrain us where constraint may be undesirable," she says. "And it also sends a message of weakness international...