The Weeks Review

VALERIE PLAME, JOSEPH WILSON, KARL ROVE and CIA

As Karl Rove is literally the bane of liberal Democrats' existence, they are understandably in utter euphoria over the Valerie Plame "outing" kerfuffle. Did Karl Rove break any laws or even do anything that could be considered unethical? At this writing, it appears that no laws were broken and ethical transgression is highly questionable.

Saije, at contentbased does a rather nice job of storyboarding the entire convoluted affair and, thus, exposing it as little more than a distraction from issues that should be occupying our attention. It tends to make one's eyes glaze over, but don't blame that on the writer, blame it on the content for it is, after all, content-based.

Meanwhile, Davis Frum asks the intriguing question: WWSBD (What Would Sydney Blumenthal Do)? He not only provides the answer, but the reaction.

Nick Schulz surmises on the motivations of Joe Wilson, and Byron York provides further insight into Karl Rove's actions as well as the actions of several others in this manufactured "scandal."

As for me, the Usual Suspects have been doing their utmost to undermine the efforts of the CIA and the entire intelligence services of this country for decades. Their efforts could best be described as castration and they have been largely effective. Now they are shocked, shocked that the identity of a covert agent (Plame) would be revealed, no matter that it has not yet been determined that she was, in fact, a covert agent in the first place. From what I have read, it was pretty much common knowledge in Washington cocktail party circles that Valerie Plame was an employee of the CIA. She seems to be the most overt covert agent in the history of intelligence.

Forgive me, but the appreciation of the Usual Suspects for the intelligence community seems to be, shall we say, selective. Perhaps the attractive blonde wife of a man who shares their ideology has, er, firmed up their commitment.

Joe Wilson, Plame's husband, strikes me as a preening, self serving, ineffectual Foreign Service shmuck who saw this situation as not only his ticket to his 15 minutes of fame, but also an opportunity to extend it to 30, 45 or possibly even an hour. I find his pseudo-erudite carriage annoying in the extreme and a textbook example of what's wrong at the State Department. Oh, and of course Joe Wilson has sanctimoniously aligned himself with Democrats who have invited him to the Capitol "to accuse the White House of a 'smear campaign.' "

To paraphrase Shakespeare: Methinks they doth protest too much.