Originally posted by: LibLion
There it is again. Bluster, rhetoric, accusation, noise... And no evidence. But then again it's the seriousness of the charrge that really matters, right?
Sorry - I'm sure we were just trying to speak your language; after all, bluster, rhetoric, accusation and noise is a staple of neocon argumentation, no? (See: Swift Boat Veterans for "Truth", Karl Rove, George W. Bush, etc.)
See... All this posturing about how Plame was this James Bond-like undercover agent and outing her was going to put lives at risk and ruin the best intel operation we had going in the middle east... I knew it had to be exaggerated.
So, from that ultra neo-con icon, The NY TImes
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But other former C.I.A. officers say that by 2003 Ms. Wilson's cover was already thin. Any serious inquiry would have revealed that Brewster Jennings was little more than a mailbox. Though she traveled regularly, Ms. Wilson, who speaks French, German and Greek, had been working for some time at agency headquarters in Langley, Va. And her marriage to a senior American diplomat, Mr. Wilson, ended any pretense of having no government ties.
"At that point, she looks, walks and quacks like an overt agency employee," said Fred Rustmann, a C.I.A. officer from 1966 to 1990, who supervised Ms. Wilson early in her career and calls her "one of the best, an excellent officer."
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Now, does this make what happened right? No.
Should the person who did it be punished? Yes.
But...
Is this woman the Christ-like figure some are ginning her up to be? No.
Are the consequences for outing her as serious as some would like for us to believe? No.
Is this thing being blown wildly out of proportion for political purposes? Absolutely!
Shorter whoozeyourdaddy:
"Oh, but she wasn't James Bond, and 'people kinda knew' anyway, so it's totally OK that her administration took a personally retributive action against her and her husband and outed her identity! Heil Rove! Heil Bush!"
Whatever.
Personally, I think it's premature for glory on either side; current history suggests that the neocons get away with whatever they pull, so we liberals shouldn't get too excited - we might jinx it. On the other side, the neocons ought not get too smug, because there
is a significant amount of evidence pointing towards a very serious charge, and it does no one any good to try to dismiss it as irrelevant or overblown. This is definitely a wait-and-see situation.