Judy Miller Right Bark Wrong Tree

While I love the fact that Atrios and Shafer are barking up Judith Miller's tree about the Ahmed Chalabi bomb she dropped on Hardball.

They seem to be barking up the wrong tree.

I realized this because I was watching my DVR recording of the Capital Gang last night and noticed that they had dropped that bomb first.

Namely Margaret Carlson asking Anderson Cooper to corroborate the "rumor" here is the transcript of the January 29th show:

CARLSON: Anderson, is Ahmed Chalabi, who was the hope of the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to be the American installed leader of an Iraq that was celebrating our arrival, is he staging a comeback despite the fact that he was then abandoned by Americans? Did the kind of de- Americanization of Ahmed Chalabi make, you know -- I was surprised to see that he's up for election and is on the Sistani slate.

COOPER: Yes, the nine lives of Ahmed Chalabi. This may be like the 18th life of Ahmed Chalabi. He has sort of repositioned himself, distanced himself from the Americans, repositioned himself on the Shiite more religious ticket, not the secular ticket, sort of the religious ticket I guess sort of rediscovering his religious roots, if you will.

And he has had, you know, I guess you could say something of a resurgence. He is still around. You know there were a lot of people who kind of wrote him off a year ago. His name is on the ticket. He's one of the more well known people who is on this slate of candidates for this party.

Exactly what his role will be, if their slate, if that ticket actually does get elected that's sort of open because, as you know, people aren't necessarily voting for individual candidates. They're voting for a list or a group of parties that have allied together. But Ahmed Chalabi is still out here, still working and still a power player.

I wrote them maybe they will link me.