Andrea Mitchell, Hardball and Deliberate Misinformation

On a recent visit to Hardball, Andrea Mitchell checked some facts on the door. She's NBC's chief foreign affairs correspondent, so you'd think she'd know better! So what did she say that's getting people like me in a tizzy?

This is what Andrea Mitchell said on NBC's Meet the Press, July 6, 2003 edition:

"Joe Wilson went on television with us and in interviews and said he had been dispatched by the vice president...he led people to believe, he said publicly, that he had been dispatched by the vice president. And that was clearly not the case by every bit of reporting that I have been able to do."

Media Matters can't find any reference anywhere that Wilson claimed that Cheney sent him to Niger. Mitchell can't seem to back the her own assertions either. In the July 6, 2003, interview, this is what Wilson said regarding the his Niger trips:

"The [question of Iraq seeking uranium from Niger] was asked of the CIA by the office of the vice president."

This what Factcheck.org says on the matter:

July 6, 2003 – Wilson publishes " What I didn’t find in Africa" in The New York Times, identifying himself for the first time as the unnamed “envoy.” He writes, “I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq 's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.” Wilson does not mention that he learned there was a possibility Iraq had sought uranium during a 1999 trade meeting with Niger’s former Prime Minister.


Contrary to later statements by White House officials, Wilson does not claim that Cheney sent him on the Niger trip, only that he was sent to answer questions from Cheney’s “office.” He also doesn’t claim that Cheney was told of his findings, only that it would be “standard operating procedure” for the CIA to brief Cheney’s office on the results of his mission. (Wilson, " What I didn’t find, New York Times July 6, 2003).

How did Mitchell come to her conclusion that Wilson had been "dispatched by the vice president"? What does her "every bit of reporting" include? Apparently a fanciful leap of logic. I think she owes viewers an explanation and a retraction.

Note to Andrea Mitchell: Facts still are facts Andrea; how about checking yours before you make on-air statements instead of being a shill?

There's an excellent diary at Daily Kos that goes into the matter in more depth, and since I'm not one to reinvent wheels, I'll send you there so you can read VirginaDem's diary.