Talking Points Unbound

Salon had this link-heavy story on their site, so I'll just borrow a big chunk and save myself the effort:

It's a central theme of the Republican Party's Karl Rove talking points -- repeated by RNC chairman Ken Mehlman on CNN yesterday, by Republican Rep. Peter King on MSNBC last night, and by an editorial in the Wall Street Journal today: When Karl Rove told Time's Matthew Cooper that Joseph Wilson's wife sent him off to investigate the Iraq-Niger connection, Rove was simply rebutting Wilson's public claim that he had been sent by Vice President Dick Cheney himself.

There's just one flaw with this spin: The Republicans' evidence doesn't come close to supporting it.

In their talking points, the Republicans say: "Karl Rove discouraged a reporter from writing a story based on a false premise. The false premise was Joe Wilson's allegation that the vice president sent him to Niger." In the Journal's telling of the tale, Rove "told the press the truth that Mr. Wilson had been recommended for the CIA consulting gig by his wife, not by Vice President Dick Cheney as Mr. Wilson was asserting on the airwaves."

What's the Republicans' evidence that Wilson made such a claim? The talking points list two items. First, there's Wilson's July 6, 2003, New York Times Op-Ed. But Wilson doesn't say there that Cheney sent him to Niger. What he says is this: "In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report ... The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office."