I'd like to read it but the Wash Post registration system consistently forgets my info and it's just a big hassle. Hopefully someone will sufficiently excerpt it for my elucidation.

I run into the same problem, Eric, but believe me, this one's worth a bit of hassle.

The [Sen. Intelligence Committee] report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong."

"Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the 'dates were wrong and the names were wrong' when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have "misspoken" to reporters. The documents -- purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq -- were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger.

If you don't want to register, use this site to obtain a valid user ID and password: http://www.bugmenot.com

Ace: I saw this and thought you might like to read it. Read the comments too, cause that's where most of the good stuff is. I don't know how reliable this stuff is, but it sure spun me. They certainly seem to know what they're talking about.

Great stuff--enough to prove Wilson the liar--but what in the story addresses the partisan hackishness of Plame?

I'm guessing, Nicholas, that the reference is to this:

Administration officials told columnist Robert D. Novak then that Wilson, a partisan critic of Bush's foreign policy, was sent to Niger at the suggestion of Plame, who worked in the nonproliferation unit at CIA.

But the inference is weak. There are lots of nonpartisan women out there who'd find it pretty convenient if hubby were shipped off to Niger for a few weeks.

She connived to have her liberal hack husband "investigate" the report.

He did investigate thoroughly. The hotel's pool area and pina colada offerings were top notch, especially the little umbrella swizzle sticks in each drink--perfect.

The sweet mint tea was first-rate.

Of her memo, he said: "I don't see it as a recommendation to send me."

Well yeah Joe, if it made me look like a liar I guess I would want to see it differently too.

I'm shocked.

we appreciate your knowledge and alacrity in expressing yourself and agree with most whatyou say...but, just wish you would clean up your lanaguge...references to anatomical and vegetative and reproductive functions seem to be much beneath you..surely, your command of the language will allow you to express yourself without the use of vulgarity..

To me, that the CIA investigated the single most important intelligence question of the day by sending Joe Wilson to drink tea by the pool was the true scandal. Tenet should have been fired for that last year, instead of allowed to skip out gracefully before this report.

And, Herb, just guessing, fist time you've been to Ace's site, right?

Herb,

I understand your complaints, but I'm afraid I'm going to stay foul-mouthed.

Back in my second month of blogging I cleaned up my language. I didn't like doing it. Yes, I realize there's often no reason for gratuitious profanity, but sometimes there actually is. My sense of humor is pretty juvenile and scatological. I can't change that. So, by muzzling myself for a month, I wasn't actually being myself.

You have to keep in mind that this is a hobby, and there's a limit to how willing someone is to change his fundamental personality in order to further his hobby. When I curse, I'm not doing that to be naughty. I'm cursing because I'm writing quickly and stream-of-conscious, and, honestly, that's the way I often think. Most of the stuff on this site is first-draft, off-the-top-of-my-head, and cursing tends to be part of that first draft.

I am mindful that readers may object to some of the things I write, especially since I'm writing for a group of people which includes a lot of cultural conservatives. But I'm afraid there's no way to compromise about this; if I try to be clean, I'm not being myself, and then this is no fun at all, in which case I just stop blogging.

I'm sorry if that puts some readers off. I really would like as many readers as possible. I just don't think it's possible to satisfy oneself and all others simultaneously.

I do try to avoid what I consider purely cursing-for-the-sake-of-cursing. In my serious posts, I avoid all cursing (and all joking). And I don't just throw in a "fuckjob" every so often because I think I'm due.

They say that there's always a better, more witty, more intelligent way to say something than using profanity. I believe them; "they" are always right.

But if one is too lazy or too untalented to think of that better, more witty, more intelligent way to say something, I believe that just writing "fucking douche-nozzle" can often constitute an acceptable second-best alternative. That's sort of my position on this issue.

I just got off the phone with Johnny Coldcuts...he had this to say about Herb's request:

"If that prissy primadonna's virgin eyes cant handle the site of a few 'fuckjobs' or 'fucking douche-nozzle's' on Ace's piece of shit site, then that loser should just pluck his eye balls out, stick them up his ass and learn fucking braille."

Again, that was just Johnny's opinion.

Well, sure, Johnny Coldcuts would say something like that.

Johnny's a fan of saying things like, "When I want your opinion, I'll decide what I think it should be, write it down on a piece of paper, wrap it around my cock, and stick it up your ass for you."

Oh, and that's not Johnny saying that Herb. I'm just saying that that's the sort of thing Johnny Coldcuts likes to say.

Johnny Coldcuts is my fucking HERO!!

Johnny Coldcuts for President!!1!

Ace, I thought you were kidding about the "sweet mint tea." The son of a bitch really did: He spent "eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people."

The Wilson quote comes from an article by Mark Steyn.

More Steyn:

But Niger is a 99.5 percent Sunni Muslim country with the world's second highest birth rate and a load of uranium. It's exactly the sort of place an intelligence agency in the war on terror ought to be keeping an eye on. And that doesn't mean sending Mint Tea Boy to write it up for the travel section.

Joe and Val are drama queens. They think they're in Spy Kids IV. When Joe was a little boy, he liked to hide things in his ass.