Jonah, the defense of Mary McCarthy that the NYTimes obviously rushed into print today (witness the very un-Times-like typos: e.g., White House written as “white house” and nation’s — meant to be possessive — written as “nations”) contains the following hysterical explanation of why McCarthy may have been right that the Clinton administration should not have bombed the al Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan after the 1998 embassy bombings:

“In the case of the Al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, her concerns may have been well-founded. Sudanese officials and the plant’s owner denied any connections to Al Qaeda.”

Yes, that’s right — a state sponsor of terror and an owner whose operation was linked (according to Richard Clarke) to Osama bin Laden say they had no connections to al Qaeda. No way they’d lie about that, right? It’s not like bin Laden had al Qaeda headquartered in Sudan for a number of years or anything like that …

For a somewhat different take on McCarthy and al Shifa, see Tom Joscelyn’s comprehensive post, here.