WaPo Puts a Stake Through the Heart of Joe Wilson

I guess the Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame non-scandal is now official over. Why, because the Washington Post says so. They put a final stake in the heart of the media vampire who spent the last several years sucking the life out of a story that never was:

Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.

Many of us who are not esteemed journalists figured this out long ago.