The right-wing punditocracy has blathered on ad nauseam that Valerie Plame could not have been outed because she was not a covert CIA employee, and therefore the Wilson-Plame leak scandal is nothing more than a mere drip.
Never mind that dancing on the head of this particular pin did nothing to obscure the ferocity with which Vice President Cheney, Karl Rove and their handmaidens pushed back after Mr. Valerie Plame – aka former career diplomat Joseph Wilson – published an op-ed piece in The New York Times debunking a key lie in the Bush administration’s rationale for talking the U.S. to war in Iraq.
Anyhow, while I was watching a “Seinfeld†rerun or something the other night, NBC News reported that a newly declassified summary detailing Plame’s work history at the spy agency shows that she was indeed “covert” when her name was leaked to syndicated Bush sycophant Robert Novak in July 2003, setting in motion a series of events that climaxed with the conviction of Cheney chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter†Libby.
The summary states that:
Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employee for who the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States. . . .
While assigned to CPD [Counterprofileration Division], Ms. Wilson engaged in temporary duty (TDY) travel overseas on official business. She traveled at least seven times to more than ten countries. When traveling overseas, Ms. Wilson always traveled under a cover identity — sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias — but always using cover — whether official or non-official cover (NOC) — with no ostensible relationship to the CIA.
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