Andy Warhol asks: What if Wilson and Plame made a movie and nobody came? Would it be a movie?

Apparently, the dynamic duo of martyrdom, hapless victims of the eeevil Booshies did make a film; dozens of eager fans showed up, and the movie appears to be well on its way to the 2 buck-chuck clearance bin (sorry to the Two Buck Chuck folks. Your wine is excellent) in the dark corners of the few Blockbusters that are still open for business (assuming of course that the film will make it to DVD).

The only reason I notice this is that the film "Fair Game" was so egregiously...er...challenged in the factual category, that even the WaPo editorial board couldn't watch it with a straight face. Behold the carnage:

In fact, "Fair Game," based on books by Mr. Wilson and his wife, is full of distortions - not to mention outright inventions. To start with the most sensational: The movie portrays Ms. Plame as having cultivated a group of Iraqi scientists and arranged for them to leave the country, and it suggests that once her cover was blown, the operation was aborted and the scientists were abandoned. This is simply false. In reality, as The Post's Walter Pincus and Richard Leiby reported, Ms. Plame did not work directly on the program, and it was not shut down because of her identification.

The movie portrays Mr. Wilson as a whistle-blower who debunked a Bush administration claim that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from the African country of Niger. In fact, an investigation by the Senate intelligence committee found that Mr. Wilson's reporting did not affect the intelligence community's view on the matter, and an official British investigation found that President George W. Bush's statement in a State of the Union address that Britain believed that Iraq had sought uranium in Niger was well-founded.

"Fair Game" also resells the couple's story that Ms. Plame's exposure was the result of a White House conspiracy. A lengthy and wasteful investigation by a special prosecutor found no such conspiracy - but it did confirm that the prime source of a newspaper column identifying Ms. Plame was a State Department official, not a White House political operative.

Hollywood has a habit of making movies about historical events without regard for the truth; "Fair Game" is just one more example. But the film's reception illustrates a more troubling trend of political debates in Washington in which established facts are willfully ignored. Mr. Wilson claimed that he had proved that Mr. Bush deliberately twisted the truth about Iraq, and he was eagerly embraced by those who insist the former president lied the country into a war. Though it was long ago established that Mr. Wilson himself was not telling the truth - not about his mission to Niger and not about his wife - the myth endures. We'll join the former president in hoping that future historians get it right.

When you've lost the WaPo you have well and truly jumped the shark. Although the editors are gentle on the martyrs, using the understated but vaguely positive headline "Holywood myth-making on Valerie Plame controversy". "Myth Making"? I can think of some more 'colorful' metaphors, and more accurate. But old Joe and Val did serve their purpose way back then, so cut 'em some slack. [That said, there's a subtle apology in the direction of the eeevil Boosh. See if you can find it.] Compare the above-linked lionizing WaPo review of the book "Fair Game", featuring Valerie as an empathetic CIA working mom, to the much less sanguine movie review. Guess the books are always better than the movie adaptations eh WaPo? ("Jaws" excluded).

Word from Warhol: The Wilson-Plames = Couple who desperately want their 15 minutes of fame to go on and on and on..

Move along folks.

Move along.