Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) ran to the podium yesterday to make claims about the I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby verdict that were factually incorrect. The partisan attack by Reid had nothing to do with the Libby trial and everything to do with more lying, deceit and Bush bashing.

Reid falsely proclaimed:

“It’s about time someone in the Bush administration has been held accountable [sic] for the campaign to manipulate intelligence and discredit war critics.”

This is how far Democrats will go to pursue their agenda to please the anti-war left and score points with their feckless followers on the campaign trail of hate and deceit. Who needs facts when you can find a podium and chortle on about a verdict that is dubious at best and has ruined the life of an honest broker of long public service.

However, since Reid is on the false assumption of “campaign to manipulate intelligence and discredit war critics”, let us review some facts and substance.

In its March 2005 report on pre-war WMD intelligence, the Silberman-Robb commission wrote, “The United States government asserted that Saddam Hussein had reconstituted his nuclear weapons program, had biological weapons and mobile biological weapon production facilities, and had stockpiled and was producing chemical weapons. All of this was based on the assessments of the U.S. Intelligence Community.”

Imagine that, the U.S. Intelligence Community assessment, not George W. Bush, not Vice-President Cheney, not I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby made that claim.

The New York Times had previously written that President Bush’s claim that Saddam Hussein had sought uranium in Africa

“had already been flatly discredited by an envoy investigating at the behest of the office of the Vice President.”

The envoy was the real liar in this whole mess, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who was never dispatched anywhere by Vice-President Cheney or members of his staff.

Feeding the “shark” frenzy was Prosecutor Fitzgerald who, in his closing arguments, claimed there is a “cloud over the Vice-President.” How did that statement have anything to do with a trial of perjury and obstruction of justice. The lame prosecutor simply continued his attack on the Bush administration and provided more fodder to the Liberals. 

Joe Wilson wasn’t on a misson to Niger for Vice-President Cheney but Wilson and his Liberal ilk are on a mission to bring down the Republican administration and to publicize themselves.