Some Interesting Facts on the Plame Caper

1) Robert Novak was never approached by the Bush administration.............2) Valerie Plame drove to work/Langley in public view every day.............3) Henry Waxman allowed only one rebuttal witness at the hearings; Victoria Toensing, who he constantly harangued and threatened.............4) Plame was not covert as defined by the Intelligence Identities Act of 1982 (this, in that she hadn't been stationed overseas during the previous 5 years).............5) All that Robert Novak reported was that the wife of former Ambassador, Joe Wilson, is/was "an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction". Nothing was ever reported by Mr. Novak that Joe Wilson's wife was ever covert.............6) A media brief (comprised of some 36 media outlets) clearly states that "NO CRIME HAD BEEN COMMITTED" (in this supposed outing of Valerie Plame).............7) The first indication that Valerie Plame had ever been a covert operative came from a column by liberal ramrod, David Corn (2 days full after the Novak column).............8) In this column, Mr. Corn hypothesizes that Plame had been outed to punish Joe Wilson, something that Mr. Novak had NEVER suggested....9) Mr. Corn's source? It had to have been Joe Wilson. I mean, he doesn't mention anybody else in the piece, does he? And being that Robert Novak never mentioned it.............10) The original leaker of Plame-Wilson's name was Richard Armitage, in the words of Mr. Novak himself, "not a partisan gunslinger" (not to mention, an opponent of the Iraq War).............11) In the aforementioned media brief, it was alleged that Mrs. Plame-Wilson's cover was actually blown (in the mid-90s) by the C.I.A., first in Russia, and then through a C.I.A. disclosure to Fidel Castro.............12) According to Novak, he only learned the name, Valerie Plame, by reading Mr. Wilson's entry in "Who's Who in America".............13) Only two Republicans bothered to show up for the hearings. This, according to former Connecticut Congressman Christopher Shays (not exactly a partisan gunslinger, either), was predominantly because of Henry Waxman's "extreme bias".............14) Mr. Novak also points to sworn F.B.I. testimony which states that Mrs. Plame-Wilson's C.I.A. employment was common knowledge in Washington.............15) Novak never denigrated Wilson in the initial column. In fact, he spoke quite highly of him (referring to Mr. Wilson's "heroism" during the first Iraq War).............16) Novak opposed BOTH Iraq Wars and was never a fan of either Bush.............17) Conservative columnist, Cliff May (who I almost always disagree with when it comes to issues of foreign policy), lays it all out pretty well, I think; Either the Bush administration intentionally exposed a covert CIA agent as a way to take revenge against her husband who had written a critical op-ed OR this same Bush administration was attempting to set the record straight by telling reporters that it was NOT Vice President Cheney who had sent Wilson on the Africa assignment, as Mr. Wilson himself had claimed, but rather it was Wilson’s wife, a CIA employee, who had helped get him the assignment (and that that in fact is the conclusion of the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee). You make the call, I guess.............18) Yeah, I know, I'm a little late to the party on this one.