http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001433629Kristof Re-Visits Key 2003 Column on Joe Wilson's Trip to Niger
NEW YORK After months of complaints from what he calls “bloggers on the right,” among others, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has posted at his paid TimesSelect page a clarification on his now-famous, but somewhat flawed, column that played a central role in the still-enveloping Plame/CIA leak case.
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First, he denies that he stated that the Vice President's office, not the CIA, sent Ambassador Wilson to Niger, only that Cheney wanted an investigation by somebody. But Kristof admits: “In fairness, though, it is true that Cheney apparently didn't know that Wilson had been dispatched. If I'd known that I would have said so.”
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He explains further: “There's also a suggestion from the right that Wilson was wildly spinning me and others and exaggerating how strongly he debunked the deal. The Senate Intelligence Committee Report is very harsh on Wilson, and there's a sense in spookdom that it came down too hard on him and was based on interviews with too few people.
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But Kristof also offers this more positive overall assessment of Wilson: “I think that the attacks on Wilson are overdone. ... More generally, I find the attacks on a private citizen like Wilson rather distasteful. Sure, he injected himself into the public arena with his op-ed column and TV appearances, and so some scrutiny is fair. But I figure it's more important to examine and probe the credibility of, say, the vice president than a retired ambassador.”