Why Is Senator Jon Kyl Strongly Denying a Report in Time Magazine?

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Kyl Denial

Senator Jon Kyl (search) has issued a blistering and unusually categorical denial of a Time Magazine story, which quotes unnamed Capitol Hill sources as saying the Arizona Republican went to extraordinary lengths to bring down former Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers (search). In a letter to the editor, Kyl writes, "I never argued that Ms. Miers was 'ideologically risky.' I have never in my life organized a ‘whisper campaign'... No one from the White House ever called me to object about my approach to the nomination... And I most absolutely did not 'try to kill' the nomination 'from Day One’” — all of which was asserted in the Time report.

Kyl is demanding an apology, but a Time spokesman says the magazine stands by the story.

Wilson's Attack

Joseph Wilson (search) first attacked the administration's rationale for invading Iraq in a May 2003, New York Times article citing his own mission to Africa as part of the basis. But in multiple public appearances after his trip and before the Times article, the former ambassador never mentioned his trip, or criticized the president's assertion that Iraq had been seeking uranium in Africa.

In October 2002, Wilson told a policy forum that he conceded that Iraqi weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists. And in an online chat in April 2003, Wilson called finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq "immaterial" saying, "The liberation is now the rationale if we don't find them, discussion about them will cease."

House Hearings Nixed

While Senate Democrats were behind closed doors demanding a renewed Senate investigation into prewar intelligence the chairman of the House Government Reform Committee (search) rebuffed Democrats' call for House hearings on the White House Leak.

Answering Democrat Henry Waxman's demand, Virginia Republican Tom Davis (search) writes that special prosecutor Fitzgerald has been "complete and thorough" and slams what he calls Waxman's attempt to make the resulting indictments about the war, when Fitzgerald pointedly said they were not. Davis also notes that Democrats refused to participate in a congressional inquiry into Hurricane Katrina (search), saying such hearings would inevitably result in a "partisan whitewash." Says Davis, "Your case and its credibility would be aided by some consistency."

— FOX News' Aaron Bruns contributed to this report