Plame was in Who's Who In America......

[Postman]

and other rightwing talking points trying to pin the blame on the Wilson's themselves for "outing" her identity....(example: I learned Valerie Plame’s name from Joe Wilson’s entry in ‘Who’s Who in America’)

Meaningless. Is it listed in Who's Who In America under "Joe Wilson" - I'm married to Valerie Plame, A COVERT CIA OFFICER..??? or does it say Joe Wilson's wife is Valerie Plame Wilson (without associating her to the CIA).

A big difference and a nuance that their rightwing knuckleheads can't pick up on....

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. You know these guys

They are the ones who have BATH MAT printed on their bath mats so they don't lose 'em.....

[emulatorloo]

2. Wingnut Pundits are either 1. The stupidist people ever born or 2. boldfaced liars

Take your pick -- The nonsensical stuff they come up with strains plausiblity.

[Junkdrawer]

3. Didn't Nofacts storm out of an interview when he saw a copy of Who's Who...

in front of Carville?

[Gothmog]

4. Josh Marshall has a copy of the listing in Who's Who

There was a listing for Ambassador Joe Wilson that mentions that he has a wife named Valerie. The list does not disclose that she was with the CIA.

[stevedeshazer]

5. They've been kicking that one around since 2003

That was put to rest for good today, but the RW mouth-breathers will keep it alive for generations.

[walldude]

6. Desperate aren't they...

I guess that the CIA is really a liberal organization and Gen Hayden, it's head, who demanded an investigation into why a 20 year covert operation was blown, is a pawn of the Democrats who are just out to get poor Georgie and his friends. :eyes:

[Igel]

7. I've sketched this out before.

In summer '03 Joe Wilson was called a "Democratic operative." Imagine how we would treat a guy we called a "Republican operative."

You find out his wife--Mrs. Wilson--is, in a report (later leaked or partly declassified, I forget which), said to have recommended Joe Wilson. It doesn't matter that the report overstates things by a far sight.

Now, you know Joe Wilson has a wife, Mrs. Wilson. Mrs. Wilson works for the CIA as an "analyst." Joe Wilson's fighting a repub prez, and the narrative is that the career employees in the CIA are fighting their new boss. What do you do? What do you do if you think the repub hirees under *--career employees, and therefore all but unfireable--are working against a dem prez, and you hear of an employee who appears to be working against your guy's program.

You check on them. You look for dirt. Who's Who says CIA analyst Valerie Wilson = Valerie Plame. Google said that Valerie Plame contributed to the Gore 2000 campaign, so she's in the enemy camp. QED.

But wait, there's a problem. Google (the FEC site, actually) says that CIA analyst Valerie Wilson, going by Plame, is actually an employee of Brewster Jennings. What the hey?

You Google. Brewster Jennings was incorporated in the '90s, is listed as having one employee (Ms. Plame?), and is in Boston. Dun and Bradstreet ahoy. But Valerie Plame's address is in N. Virginia. Huh? You think for two seconds.

A CIA employee uses her maiden name and is working for another company ... hmmmm. You check the Boston phone book. No Brewster Jennings. You go to the company's address. Not even a closet for the company. Your lackeys ask around, and nobody in the building for the last 10 years has ever heard of them.

So what do you have? A CIA employee uses her maiden name and gives her employer as a front company. Either she lied, she has a parallel life her husband knows nothing about, or she's covert CIA. Interesting enough by itself to merit a comment in an article.

Now, what is illegal about this? Well, nobody should have outed Valerie Wilson as working for the CIA. That was classified. But it wasn't her covert identity--Mrs. Wilson didn't work for BJ--so that's not prosecutable. It's not even clear people actually knew she was covert when they said "Wilson's wife = CIA."

Now, why was her undercover identity blown? Because classified information was leaked, a minor sin. Everything else was public knowledge--made public by Valerie Wilson herself. She didn't out herself, but she raised her profile and put the info out there--presumably any of her coworkers could have come up with the info, info they weren't to have. Maybe she didn't know how powerful Google was. But agents should keep a low profile unless necessary. The third sin, so to speak, was the CIA's: The CIA did a crappy job making sure her cover could withstand even the slightest of scrutiny. I'm not talking Toensing's whimsical nonsense. Everything after "Mrs. Wilson works for the CIA" is public, and any Joe Sixpack has every right to look it up and put two and two together. If she was a BJ employee abroad in 2000 and anybody checked the phone book, or had a relative look up her employer, they'd have seen she had no cover beyond a name and she's quite possibly be dead.