Steve, why do you conservatives hate America?

The Corner I can understand, but this is surprisingly inane for OTB.

Ken,

I'm not a conservative and you missed your last scheduled dose of Haldol.

Jim,

Gee, since you already covered the L.A. Times article on Battlestar Galactica there wan't much left.

I find it funny that the mainstream media continues to claim that Plame was a “covert agent.” That is hogwash. She was nothing but a publicity-seeking, low-level, trade-union liberal, big-government bureaucrat.

Karl Rove and Bob Novak should be given the Presidential Medal of Freedom for exposing her as the liberal fraud she is.

Steve, your apparent hatred of America led me to believe you were a conservative. Sorry. Is there another 'ism' out there with as much contempt for America and our values as conservatism?

You got nothing, Ken and you are at risk to lose even that.

How does posting a pic from Vanity Fair which pierces the veil of press BS about the "covert" Mrs. Wilson show you "hate America"? Is this an inside joke? Or am I particularly obtuse not to see the connection? Ken, (or anyone else), I need some help here.

Jim:

Yes, it is an inside joke; just remember that "ken" is the punchline.

I'm not sure what's more puzzling, the notion that a photo ID'ing Plame as Wilson's wife somehow "outed" her in a way that Novak already hadn't, or the notion that once outed, a covert operative can just lie low a while & then go back to her covert job.

By definition, when your cover's blown, it's blown.

Do you guys need to read some spy novels or something? John LeCarre is good if you stick to the earlier stuff.

Ken, Steve doesn't hate America, he hates idiocy. It's not his fault if you think they're the same thing.

led me to believe you were a conservative

Steve is neither liberal nor conservative, left nor right. He is a dweller in the shadow land of economics and game theory, which have no basis in reality.

But on the bright side, he has a fine bag of Scrabble letters. Which brings me to a question, Steve, how is the proofreading accomplished here at OTB?

Btw, it's cool that this particular "covert operative" or whatever is actually kinda hot. Sharon Stone could play her, easy. Maybe Plame can talk Sharon up at one of their "low key social life" encounters.

Steve, one does like to keep up with the monuments of our culture, but I take your point!

How does posting a pic from Vanity Fair which pierces the veil of press BS about the “covert” Mrs. Wilson show you “hate America”?

It does what?

By definition, when your cover’s blown, it’s blown.

I know, but there is this pretense that she is still a secret agent/trying to maintain privacy. The first Vanity Fair photo of her, had her wearing glasses and a scarf over her hair to make her less recognizable. From the N. Y. Times article,

Meanwhile, Ms. Wilson, 42, whose husband said she has used her married name both at work and in her personal life since their 1998 marriage, declined to speak for this article. She has guarded her privacy, with rare exceptions. She posed with her husband for a Vanity Fair photographer, wearing sunglasses and with a scarf over her blond hair. She drafted an op-ed article to correct what she felt were distortions of her and her husband's actions, but the C.I.A. would not authorize its publication, saying it would "affect the agency's ability to perform its mission."

This is at odds with posing for a picture for Vanity Fair and going to well known party with lots of photographers.

Steve is neither liberal nor conservative, left nor right. He is a dweller in the shadow land of economics and game theory, which have no basis in reality.

Ron! Damn, but you nailed it right there. Thanks.

But on the bright side, he has a fine bag of Scrabble letters. Which brings me to a question, Steve, how is the proofreading accomplished here at OTB?

Proofreading? Sheesh, I'm good at math not sPrelljng. Occasionally, if I remember I hit the spellcheck button...does that count?

Steve, one does like to keep up with the monuments of our culture, but I take your point!

Hey, don't get me wrong I love BSG. It is the best damned SciFi I've ever seen, and your post is spot on about television finally starting to catch up to the SciFi writing.

A 2005 picture in Vanity Fair identifying her as Joe Wilson's wife blew her cover retroactively?

I get it now! Robert Novak read Vanity Fair now, then travelled backwards in time to 2003 to tell himself that she was a CIA agent! It alllll makes perfect sense now!

It's as good an explanation as any, and most right-wingers would readily accept it. Either because they believed it, or because it was the necessary and official line.

The Vanity Fair piece doesn't even say that she's a CIA agent. It doesn't even seem to say that she's married to Wilson. But I'm sure the time-travellers who showed the photo to Novak filled in the details for him.

Boy Steve, you really know how to draw 'em in. Let's see, we have an undercover CIA operative, outed by the government (or outed by the press to the government, the story is unclear). And a picture shows up in whatever this magazine is.

Apparently her name, husband's identity, and public photographs are no problem for her (or anyone else's) safety. Have you boys stopped to wonder just how much undercover she ever was?

And Steve, I've just noticed an improvement in ... how to say it ... accurate ordering of letters here. I thought maybe there was some outside influence :-)

Have you boys stopped to wonder just how much undercover she ever was?

Sarcasm doesn't seem to be working, so let's spell this out.

Valerie Plame was once an undercover agent. Working on a non-official cover, which is apparently as undercover as they get. At this time it was important to keep her identity a secret.

Then Robert Novak, with the help of Administration officials, revealed that she was an undercover agent.

At this point her identity was no longer a secret. Because it had been revealed by Robert Novak, with the help of Administration officials.

Now that her identity is no longer a secret, her picture appears in a magazine.

Why is this supposed to make us wonder how undercover she ever was?

What publicity was Plame seeking when she went by her husband's name and worked undercover? This is the "flypaper strategy" for blown NOCs and it stinks as badly here as it does in Iraq. Ironically, there would be no flypaper strategy if the intelligence Joe Wilson collected on his now-infamous mission had been taken seriously.

She could get a new cover, even today. It happens. It's brazen but it can be done. If she were any good at her job before it would actually be a good calculated risk to take. But no one in this administration has any particular interest in whether someone is good at her job.

You can go to one party -- by the invitation of someone with whom you have had previous business dealings -- and still have a modest social life. (I can see, however, where someone with no social life might not see the distinction.) By the way, take it from my namesake: it was a bitching party. Sorry you weren't invited. Actually, no, I'm not.

Sarcasm doesn’t seem to be working
You can say that again.

Boy Steve, you really know how to draw ‘em in.

It's a gift...or curse, I'm not sure.

Gift as far as I'm concerned. But then, I make a study of weirdness.