This will be a bitter pill for some conservatives to swallow. CIA Director Michael Hayden personally reviewed and okayed Henry Waxman's opening statement for Valerie Plame's testimony today. Furthermore, Hayden took pains to set the record straight: Plame was indeed a covert agent up until the day Robert Novak revealed as much to the public. You see, many on the right (including some here at The Stump) have spent a lot of time trying to convince us otherwise. They never fail to use quotation marks when referring to the administration's "outing" of Plame so as to suggest that no such undercover status ever existed. While Patrick Fitzgerald may not have believed he had enough evidence to prove that a crime was committed, there was really never much doubt that Plame had covert status.
In fact, Plame's testimony proved illuminating on a number of fronts. Under oath, articulate, and forceful, she laid to waste a veritable forest of myths that the right has erected against her. No, she wasn't a mere pencil pusher, she'd undertaken undercover missions to foreign countries over the past five years. No, she hadn't been the one to select her husband to go to on his fact-finding mission to Niger. No, she didn't talk to Nicholas Kristof (or others in the media) about her job at the CIA. But most importantly, in the words of the man who now heads the CIA, she was very much a covert agent.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 11)
1. Plame may be lame, but Rudy is flaming out with "Swift Boat" attacks coming from 9/11 families and all those Rudy drag queen videos at http://www.solidpolitics.com
Bill at 12:37PM on Mar 16th 2007
2. It is a shame that Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald did not pursue the real crime involved here. For anyone to out an covert CIA agent regardless of their position and/or tittle is committing a crime against our constitution and is an enemy of our country. That is treason, and if the trail leads to Rove, Cheny, or Bush, charges should be filed, tried, and executed for high treason if found guilty!
g02342000 at 12:55PM on Mar 16th 2007
3. The big question: why wasn;t Robert Novak indicted for outing a CIA agent? Inquiring minds want to know.
martin s goldman at 12:57PM on Mar 16th 2007
4. If outing the CIA agent is a crime, why did the press deseminate the information?
S. kunz at 1:17PM on Mar 16th 2007
5. If outing a CIA agent is a crime, why did the press deseminate the information?
S. kunz at 1:02PM on Mar 16th 2007
6. Let me get this correct. Someone working at CIA headquarters is a covert agent. Someone who doesn't like the Bush Administration and its policies and on his own leaks the name of someone working at the CIA headquarters is working for the Bush Administration's policies. If you blieve the above, I have stock in the Brooklyn Bridge Company I wish to sell you.
George Kuck at 1:05PM on Mar 16th 2007
7. What a con.. this lady bilked the system, had a low level state-side job, stole money from the government and falsly went public with her husband saying that she and her husband were doing high level investigation for the goverment overseas, she announced in articles and publicly that she was a covert cia agent and outted herself. remember libby is a democrat, was drug dealers's mark rich's attorney whom bill clinton pardoned and a coprupt attorney that should have resigned from his job anyway, this is a black mark for the clinton era but the fact that he stayed on in the bush administration the left wingers are trying to twist the truth. the fact of the matter is that this women's husband went to africa, never left his hotel room, lied about his purpose and connnections in getting money to travel and the american people have been swindled. they should all hang, this woman, her husband and libby!
rick at 4:12AM on Mar 17th 2007
8. I've never understood how Robert Novak skated by on this. When you knowingly and intentionally expose an agent of the government, with the potential to cause death to either that agent or persons working with, or for, that agent, doesn't this border on treason? If he starts to publish the names of the Iraqis who are helping us with intelligence over there, does that raise his chances for a Nobel Peace Prize?
Clement A. Rose at 1:20PM on Mar 16th 2007
9. SHE WAS A "SPY" ?? THE WIFE OF A UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Ambassador !! WOW SOME SPY !! CIA MUST BE HARD UP FOR SPYS !! I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHAT SHE GOT PAID FOR HER "WORK" ? WHAT A JOKE !! MAYBE HER HUSBAN IS A "SPY" ALSO, WHICH COUNTRY ?? NO WONDER THE CIA CAN NOT FIND "WMD"
MIKE EBERT at 3:32PM on Mar 16th 2007
10. You fail to note that the only person who should be in jail for "outing" Plame is Richard Armitage, a man who is definitely not a Bush friend or confidant.
Instead, Libby is going to the hole and Plame and Wilson can suck the air out of their last fleeting minutes of fame.
Scott at 1:47PM on Mar 16th 2007
11. George do you have some of those WMDS with your Brooklyn Bridge stock or is this stock claim just another republican lie? Ambassador Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame are true patriots and should be rewarded by Congress for standing by the truth when Bush lied about the yellowcake uranium in Niger that Saddam supposedly purchased for WMDS. This was the lie that BUsh and Cheney used to invade Iraq. To involve our country in a war baseed on lies is TREASON!
GARY at 1:49PM on Mar 16th 2007
12. George do you have some of those WMDS with your Brooklyn Bridge stock or is this stock claim just another republican lie? Ambassador Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame are true patriots and should be rewarded by Congress for standing by the truth when Bush lied about the yellowcake uranium in Niger that Saddam supposedly purchased for WMDS. This was the lie that Bush and Cheney used to invade Iraq. To involve our country in a war baseed on lies is TREASON!
g02342000 at 1:53PM on Mar 16th 2007
13. scott,
you just couldn't resist those quotation marks.
I do agree that it would appear that Armitage is somewhere near the epicenter of this matter. Libby won't serve a day of jail time, and Plame and Wilson will most certainly continue to do quite nicely for themselves.
the fact remains, Plame was a covert agent at the CIA.
david knowles at 1:56PM on Mar 16th 2007
14. Valerie Plame was a covert agent? I bet she really fit in with Middle Eastern society and was able to carry out covert missions and look the part of someone of Semitic ancestry with her physical appearance and I have no doubt she could converse expertly in Farsi and other Middle Eastern languages and dialects.....I am sure she was able to blend in well with her surroundings considering she is blond, with light eyes, and fair skin....really looks the part of a covert agent in the Middle East section....maybe she would fit in here or Russia or the UK, but the Middle East, which is allegedly her section, does not appear to be where someone of her physical being could operate covertly and be successful....I just don't buy that as being the truth
Adrian Palmer at 1:55PM on Mar 16th 2007
15. I think what people fail to realize with respect to Ms. Plame is the nature of covert agent work. Every foreign national who was known to have ever had contact with her and/or her husband while at social functions, etc., every one of their lives was potentially put at risk by the outing.
Martha at 1:58PM on Mar 16th 2007