Ever since Arianna invited me to join the ranks of her esteemed contributors, I've been intending to write a suitably impressive introductory post--you know, uncompromising and angry, but in a wry sort of way, with maybe just a hint of poignancy. But I think I'll dispense with all of that and get right down to business.
One of the stupidest talking points I've seen so far in the Rove/Plame matter is the attempt to conflate the exposure of Valerie Plame's status as a CIA operative with any pre-Novak acknowledgment of her existence. John Gibson tried this one out on Bob Beckel a couple of nights ago (my transcript, so no link):
Were you ever in any of those receiving lines where Joe Wilson brought his CIA operative wife out into public view in front of cameras to meet the president and such? If he brings her out in public to be photographed by tv, hasn't he outed her?
Well, no, John, he hasn't, not unless he also hung a big "CIA AGENT" sign around her neck. As my friend Billmon notes:
In Gibson's imagination, cameras apparently possess some kind of powerful magic that allows America's enemies (other than Karl Rove, I mean) to identify undercover CIA agents simply by looking at their pictures.
Does the Man from U.N.C.L.E. know about this?
Gibson was at it again last night, this time with regular Fox News contributor Judge Andrew Napolitano, and this time--I know this will be difficult to believe--demonstrable falsehoods were uttered. Right there, on the Network America Trusts.
Sayeth Judge Napolitano (again, my transcript):
...then I would ask, was her name already out there? Our friend and colleague at the New York Post, owned by the same parent company as Fox News, the wonderful John Podheretz reports this morning that her name was out there--where?--on her husband's own website! He revealed to the world, before the Novak article, that his wife worked for the CIA. So my second question is, did Karl Rove tell these people something they didn't already know?
The problem with this statement is that it is, well, not the least little bit true. Here's what the Pod actually wrote in the Post (registration required):
But Plame's undercover status at the time was and is a little questionable in any case. How undercover could she have been when her name was published at the time as part of Joseph Wilson's own biography online?
(Incidentally, here's the entirety of what Wilson's bio, at the URL provided by Podheretz, says about his wife: "He is married to the former Valerie Plame and has two sons and two daughters." Admittedly, it could have been edited--maybe in an earlier version it said, "He is married to a Super Duper Secret Agent named Valerie Plame who works on very important Top Secret Stuff, so don't tell anyone!" But somehow I doubt it.)
Now, the careful reader will note that that Podheretz does not accuse Wilson of outing his own wife as a CIA agent--only of acknowledging the fact that she is his wife. And I don't actually believe that these people are so impenetrably stupid that they are unable to comprehend that simple distinction. This is just the standard right wing debate tactic that we've seen over and over again over the past few years: throw out a ton of nonsense and see what sticks.
But you can take it to the bank: in Wingnutland, it will be--if it is not already--taken as gospel truth that Joe Wilson used to run a website called "www.my-wife-is-a-big-old-CIA-agent.com".
(A version of the preceding was also posted at my own site.)