Spinsanity does the best job running down the reporting on Joseph Wilson. Looks like there are a number of things to be concerned about Joe Wilson’s account of the whole Niger uranium thing.

Interestingly enough, I’ve been reading TPM’s favorable interpretation of the Wilson saga (starting on the 16th of July) and Belgravia Dispatch’s anti-TPM/anti-Wilson interpretation along with a number of other blogs. In the end, I’m coming to a couple of very simple conclusions:

1. Joe Wilson’s credibility is an open question.
2. His credibility is irrelevant to the Plame case.
3. His credibility is irrelevant to the 16 words issue.
4. Joe Wilson’s credibility is relevant if he’s the primary witness that the Administration intentionally lied (or was extraordinarily inept) about Iraq’s attempts to acquire uranium.

2 and 3 above are because of the same underlying reason: numerous other sources have raised questions about the quality of the intelligence. Tenet and other administration officials have said the 16 words shouldn’t have been in the State of the Union. The main upshot is that Wilson’s claims that the administration acted intentionally to mislead all of us is of questionable credibility.

Again, read the Spinsanity report. They have a good rundown. I think we’ll get more information in the coming weeks, especially as the Plame case winds up and as reporters get more time to follow up with the SSCI report.

Also, War and Piece makes an important point. She also has another good post running down some of the problems with the SSCI report and the intelligence surrounding the Niger documents (especially why it’s all so damn confusing for us clearance deprived civilians).