Valerie Plame's Sour Grapes

Charlotte, NC (TLS). In a melodramatic display suitable for a daytime Oscar, Congressional Democrats staged quite a show on Friday as they provided Valerie Plame with a platform from which to exhibit a bad case of sour grapes. Plame essentially accused everyone in the Bush Administration of deliberately blowing her 'cover,' accusing officials of 'outing' her in retaliation for her husband's opposition to the Iraq War.

The obvious problem with Plame's performance today, apart from the obvious overkill and melodramatic exaggeration, is that she is pointing the finger at the wrong persons.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's sham of a case against Scooter Libby revealed the real source of the leak--one Richard Armitage, who so far has not only escaped any blame for the 'outing' of Plame but who is never mentioned as one who may have broken federal law (this is because Fitzgerald knows Armitage broke no law in naming Plame as a CIA agent).

This begs the question, then, if the original source of the leak broke no law, then why was Scooter Libby prosecuted? Why are Democrats claiming the Bush Administration broke the law? Why are they after Cheney's head?

Plame's accusations are incredible given that everyone in Washington knew who she was and what she did, meaning of course that there was nothing inherently 'covert' about her work, although she has a penchant for touting it as such. But if one is looking for an original smoking gun--the first one to 'leak' information that everyone knew anyway--then that smoking gun is Richard Armitage.

It is curious that Armitage's name was never mentioned in Plame's lengthy soliloquy and subsequent questioning by the Congressional panel on Friday.

What is NOT surprising is that Plame was forced to admit, under heavy questioning, that she had absolutely no evidence to support her charge that Administration officials were aware that her work in the CIA was considered 'classified' information.

That Administration officials would NOT know that Plame's work was considered classified is certainly credible, given that Armitage knew all about it, along with Scooter Libby, and members of the mainstream media, such as Tim Russert, and columnist Robert Novak.

So, the question becomes, if it was common knowledge all over Washington that Plame worked for the CIA, then how could anyone be guilty of 'outing' her in retaliation? Officials within the Administration were merely repeating what they had heard others talk about openly, and thus assumed that the nature of Plame's work was NOT classified.

Let me put it this way. If Plame's work for the CIA was considered top secret and classified, then it was the most poorly-kept secret in the history of covert operations.

Merely repeating what everyone else in the Beltway already knew is not 'outing' someone.

Thus, as far as we can tell, Plame is merely verbalizing her sour grapes and cannot be considered a credible witness. And Congressional Democrats are playing this up for all it's worth in hopes of scoring some political points at the President's expense.