Well, Jon's interview with Wilson tonight was interesting... not quite what I expected.

The first segment was predictable enough, with Jon getting Wilson's opinion on the Niger uranium story and remarking on the French control of Niger's uranium supplies. (Wilson was going to correct him, but the conversation moved on too quickly.) Wilson was careful to say that he didn't say that the documents were forgeries, but just that it simply couldn't have happened the way that the documents described. He also was attempting to dispel the "somewhere else in Africa" defense, naming off the other countries and his knowledge of them (with the implication that his judgement that Saddam wasn't really trying to get African uranium extended beyond Niger.)

The second segment, though, was the one where I expected the CIA outing story to be addressed. Jon was certainly leaning in that direction, asking "so what was the White House's reaction". Wilson, however, was extremely circumspect, saying only that "people are looking into allegations that were made about my family" and not going any further than that. Jon didn't press the issue, and although it somewhat frustrated me at first, I can respect that decision... he didn't want to alienate his guest, and Wilson had clearly made his choice.

It did, however, lead to what is, for me, perhaps the defining moment of this entire scandal . Wilson said that things were probably going to be patched up, and mentioned a letter Dick Cheney had sent him asking for his support to the tune of a cool grand. He then produced the letter, to Jon's amazement and delight, and showed Dick Cheney's hand-written signature on the letter. Funniest thing I'd seen all week.

Oh, one other thing: remember that little scandalette about the White House website? Where Bush's argument that "he couldn't look over each and every sentence" was directly contradicted by a picture of Bush doing that very thing with the 2002 SOTU? Jon brought it up, and it was a great bit.

Which only leaves one question, one that's been bugging me for something like a year now:

why the hell is the Daily Show only a half-hour long?

Honestly, it deserves more time.