WSJ passes off RNC talking points as original work

The Wall Street Journal editorial board, abandoning any pretense of journalistic integrity or independent thought, becomes the latest conservative message organ to regurgitate the official GOP talking points on the Karl Rove scandal.

Here are a few tasty exerpts from today's WSJ Opinion Journal:

"Democrats and most of the Beltway press corps are baying for Karl Rove's head over his role in exposing a case of CIA nepotism involving Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame."

"For Mr. Rove is turning out to be the real "whistleblower" in this whole sorry pseudo-scandal.

"He's the one who told the press the truth that Mr. Wilson had been recommended for the CIA consulting gig by his wife, not by Vice President Dick Cheney as Mr. Wilson was asserting on the airwaves."

"The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report last July cited the note that Ms. Plame had sent recommending her husband for the Niger mission. "Interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD [Counterproliferation Division] employee, suggested his name for the trip," said the report."

"The same bipartisan report also pointed out that the forged documents Mr. Wilson claimed to have discredited hadn't even entered intelligence channels until eight months after his trip. And it said the CIA interpreted the information he provided in his debrief as mildly supportive of the suspicion that Iraq had been seeking uranium in Niger."

"About the same time, another inquiry headed by Britain's Lord Butler delivered its own verdict on the 16 words: 'We conclude also that the statement in President Bush's State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that 'The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa' was well-founded.'"

Now, see the source material for this hard-hitting opinion piece:

- Once Again, Democrats Are Engaging In Blatant Political Attacks

- Karl Rove Discouraged A Reporter From Writing A False Story Based On A False Premise.

- The False Premise Was Joe Wilson's Allegation That The Vice President Sent Him To Niger.

- The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Confirmed That Rove Was Right And Wilson Was Wrong: The Vice President Didn't Send Wilson Anywhere.

- Both The Senate Select Committee On Intelligence And The CIA Found Assessments Wilson Made In His Report Were Wrong.

- The Butler Report Claimed That The President's State Of the Union Statement On Uranium From Africa "Was Well-Founded."

_{Source: Wilson/Rove Research & Talking Points, Republican National Committee - July 12, 2005 (via The Raw Story)}

Uncanny, isn't it? What an amazing coincidence it is that the WSJ's original piece of opinion writing would so closely resemble an RNC spin-sheet!

You'd almost think that they were working in cahoots, or something.