I saw this pseudo-presser, and have been looking for a transcript ever since. Wilson LIED AND LIED AND LIED AND LIED! Well... SOMEONE ELSE TAPED IT AND HAS A REVIEW WITH EXCERPTS: ERROR THEORY (hat tip POWERLINE):
Wilson is guilty of treason, over and over again retailing malicious disinformation about the nation's war effort, and the main organs of the mainstream media keep proving themselves eager to abet. ...Every assertion by ERROR THEORY is linked/footnoted. He even has a link to a statement by former DCI Tenet which DEBUNKS WILSON! RTWT.
Wilson lies have long since been exposed, first by then CIA director George Tenet, the week after Wilson's original op-ed:
He [Joseph Wilson] reported back to us that one of the former Nigerian officials he met stated that he was unaware of any contract being signed between Niger and rogue states for the sale of uranium during his tenure in office. The same former official also said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him and insisted that the former official meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Iraq and Niger.
The former official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales.
Wilson's lies about having debunked the President's sixteen words were also painstakingly documented in the Senate Intelligence Committee report on pre-war intelligence assessments. How did the room-full of reporters react to being the vehicle for the repetition of known lies? They laughed and applauded.
The shameful low point for the Press Club was the "question and answer" session. No questions from the attendees were allowed. Press Club President Rick Dunham spoon fed Wilson a series of friendly questions, hand picked to lead Wilson into additional segments of his prepared screed. The curtain dropped entirely when Wilson let slip that he already knew the second question. Here is the revealing moment, transcribed from my tape of the speech:
Joe Wilson: ... Now with respect to the second question? Was Rove resign? [Sic.] Was that there?
Rick Dunham [sotto voce]: That's coming up.
JW [sotto voce]: Oh, that's coming up. [Then in full voice, realizing everyone has heard]: I read the question.... I read it over his shoulder.
RD: That's... right-heh… Should Karl Rove resign and...
[Interrupted by audience laughter. JW and RD also laugh, but without pausing as they hurry past the naked moment.]
This is a news organization? EVERY question was a leading puffball. "Have you been threatened?" "Should Bush be impeached?" Remember how they made a front page scandal out of American soldiers working out who would answer what type of question from the President? I'm sure they will be really outraged that an accuser telling known lies got to pick which questions he would be asked. Oh wait a minute. They were there. And they tittered and applauded and welcomed every false gesture.
It's hard to say what the low point for Wilson was, but it is worth exposing his newest disinformation about the forged documents. See Stephen Hayes’ recent Weekly Standard article for the sequence of lies that Wilson pedaled to several reporters in the Spring of '03, claiming to have discovered in Niger that the intelligence about Iraqi attempts to buy uranium ore had been based on forged documents. There were indeed some forged documents, which may have been concocted by the French to try to undermine the U.S./British case against Saddam Hussein, but these did not come into U.S. possession until October 2002. Wilson's trip to Niger was in February 2002. (Some claim the forgeries were concocted by the Italians, but either way, they played no role in Wilson's trip.)
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