In a lame attempt to help ex-CIA operative Valerie Plame’s soggy book sales (currently #33 on Amazon behind Stephen Colbert, Eric Clapton, Clarence Thomas, O.J./Goldman Family, Paul Krugman, and an umpteenth reprint of “War & Peace”), Katie Couric “conducted” an interview aimed at dummies who didn’t pay much attention when the whole episode culminated in the Scooter Libby fiasco.

For those of us who did pay attention, this whole episode continues to be an insult to our intelligence….

Valerie Plame Wilson: No Ordinary Spy
Oct. 21, 2007

(CBS) Most people have heard the name Valerie Plame, but almost no one has heard her story — until now. When her identity was published in a newspaper column four years ago, she was an undercover agent for the CIA. And when an investigation traced the leak of her name all the way to the White House, it became apparent this was no ordinary spy story.

Her cover was blown after her husband, a former ambassador named Joe Wilson, criticized the White House about the Iraq war. Was it retaliation? The administration’s supporters said no, dismissing her as a low-level analyst who wasn’t really undercover. One congressman called her “a glorified secretary.”

As a CIA spy, Valerie Plame Wilson wasn’t allowed to defend herself, maintaining her silence for four long years. The woman at the center of the CIA leak scandal now breaks her silence in her first interview with Katie Couric.

“Finally, I get to set the record straight. Everyone in the world has spoken about this. And can speak about me. Can write about me, except for me. So finally I have a voice,” Plame Wilson says.

60 Minutes met the most famous spy in America in Santa Fe, N.M., where she moved with her family earlier this year. And she wanted to clear up some misconceptions.

“When I was outed on July 14th, 2003, I was, until that moment, covert,” Plame Wilson says.

Asked what that means, Plame Wilson tells Couric, “That means no one outside of a very small circle knew where I really worked.”

The bottom line is this: not one word coming out of Valerie Plame’s mouth or book (which I haven’t read) can be trusted.

Valerie Plame, on any normal day, committed perjury in front of the the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Her inconsistencies in testimony would have been flagged if partisans, who’ve been running cover for the Wilsons for years, were actually looking for the truth.

Plame can writes books, sell her story to Hollywood, and do cupcake interviews with Katie Couric all day long, but she was not a covert agent when she claimed she was, and she can thank her husband Joe Wilson for that.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was tasked in finding out who revealed her “covert” status and after finding out, he chose to indict NO ONE for that crime. That would say to inquiring minds that Valerie Plame wasn’t “covert” as she claimed. She also said that she didn’t know who sent her husband Joe to Niger to find out if Saddam Hussein was buying yellowcake uranium from Niger.

BTW– The Scooter Libby indictment was a cost justification and nothing more.

When Valerie Plame Wilson swore that she did not recommend or suggest her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, for a fact-finding trip to Niger in 2002, Sen. Christopher Bond took note. Wilson’s words, given in testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, didn’t jibe with what Bond’s investigators had learned a few years earlier when they looked into the CIA leak matter. Now, we know why Bond was suspicious.

On page 205 of the newly released 226-page Senate Intelligence Committee report on pre-war intelligence, Bond has posted “additional views” that address the question of Plame’s testimony about her husband’s trip, the purpose of which was to check out reports Iraq had sought to buy uranium in Niger. The evidence Bond provides in his additional views contradicts Mrs. Wilson’s version of events.
– Byron York, National Review

Katie Couric, in her ongoing quest for evening news relevance, revealed nothing new with her Plame interview.

What we did get was a full-frontal of her disdain and arrogance for her viewers. She allowed Plame to regurgitate her “side” of the story, and failed to ask the tough questions, including her questionable testimony to Congress after the facts. Those questions may have made her a target by the Media Matters-left, but a real journalist would’ve asked them anyway.

Then again, one must wonder if Couric knew the whole story and wrote her own questions in the first place….

Read HERE

This entry was posted on Monday, October 22nd, 2007 at 9:34 am and is filed under Bob Parks, Politics, Vox Populi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.