The Uncorrected Version of the Truth

Tom Maguire has been writing up a storm about reports concerning a May 18 letter  by House Intelligence Committee chairman Peter Hoekstra, complaining to President Bush among other things about not being briefed about key, but mysterious-to-us, intelligence activities. In the Post, the result has been two stories by Charles Babington: Sunday's Bush is Pressed on Reporting Domestic Surveillance and today's Hoekstra Urges Bush To Impart Intelligence Details.

My very narrow point this morning is simply to emphasize what Maguire notes quickly: There's no correction of Babington's unsupported assertion--hyped in the first headline no less--that Hoekstra was referring to domestic surveillance programs. Sunday's story reads:

In a sharply worded letter, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee has told President Bush that the administration is angering lawmakers, and possibly violating the law, by giving Congress too little information about domestic surveillance programs.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (Mich.) has been a staunch defender of the administration's anti-terrorism tactics. But seven weeks ago, he wrote to Bush to report that he had heard of "alleged Intelligence Community activities" not outlined to committee members in classified briefings....

Including its reference to domestic surveillance, the story references "surveillance" four times, which is four times more than the letter does. Hoekstra refers instead to "intelligence-related activities" and "collecting information about our enemies."

Today, the indignant certainty about domestic surveillance disappears without a trace--and without a tracer. It's just gone. Hoekstra appeared on the talk-show circuit, saying much of his concern has been addressed, and Babington writes today:

...Hoekstra's remarks left unclear the nature of the intelligence programs he alluded to in his letter. He did not specify whether they involved domestic surveillance, a contentious area in which newspapers have reported about programs involving warrantless wiretaps, extensive gathering of phone records and monitoring of international bank transactions.

Any reference to the earlier story? No. Any correction appended to the earlier story online? No. Anything in Monday's correction box? No.

Read Maguire; Hoekstra's letter has quite a different flavor if he was complaining about not being informed when chemical warfare munitions were found in Iraq. And we say "if" because Hoekstra isn't telling us exactly what he meant.