PrintMarch 15, 2007
Plame's outing was a slow bleed
As noted in our article today, the outing of Plame was not a "code red" issued from the White House or the Office of the Vice President. Instead, Plame's outing was a "slow bleed" operation, removing any remaining secrecy surrounding her affiliation with the CIA. It was an operation fearlessly spearheaded by Joe Wilson with at least tacit approval from Plame.
We certainly hope to hear directly from Plame on this. But we wonder if a clue is her own insouciance with her CIA affiliation when she revealed to Wilson that she was undercover in the CIA, early in their relationship, even while Wilson was still married to his second wife.
This CIA agent working on WMDs allowed herself to be outed by the WMD to whom she was married. Joe Wilson was a weapon of mass dereliction - a gasbag willing to compromise his wife in the vainglorious pursuit of a prominent seat at the political table. We live in a nation where narcissism is not a crime. But for the good of the nation (paraphrasing someone central to this whole wretched affair): at the end of the day, it should be of keen interest to everyone to get Joe Wilson frog-marched out of the public square.
