Out of Focus

Powerline, like everyone else, has been commenting on the Plame/Rove affair. Today they take their well-trained radar and focus it where the story really is...the New York Times editorial page.

But the Plame "leak" is different, somehow:

But it is something else entirely when officials peddle disinformation
for propaganda purposes or to harm a political adversary.

Yes, we certainly agree with that. That's why our opinion of Joe
Wilson is so low. He leaked the contents of his own report to the CIA--in the
pages of the New York Times!--only he lied about his own report. He "peddled
disinformation," falsely claiming to have found no evidence of an Iraqi effort
to buy uranium from Niger, in order to "harm a political adversary," President
Bush. The Times didn't mind that particular disinformation, however, since it
fit the paper's political agenda. In fact, the Times has never issued a
correction of the misstatements in Wilson's op-ed. On the contrary, today's
editorial links to Wilson's 2003 piece and repeats its central allegations,
without even mentioning that Wilson's op-ed has been found to be fraudulent by
the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee!

I'm not going to get into the argument about whether the claims above are right or wrong, because to take the bait and talk about Joe Wilson's credibility is not the issue in this investigation. That is what Powerline is missing. Its not a crime to publish an op-ed piece, even if it is chock full o' lies. It is a crime however to expose an undercover CIA agent. But Powerline has this covered too:

In all of the liberal huffing and puffing over the supposed "outing" of Valerie
Plame--as though she might be in danger as she drove to and from her desk job in
Langley, and as though she hadn't posed for a photo shoot in Vanity Fair,
dressed up as a spy...

Oh, that old canard. You see, Powerline, Tucker Carlson and other conservative outlets feel as though they have a handle on Plame's CIA status. Not only that, they feel that have a better handle on Plame's CIA status then say, the CIA. As I stated before, the CIA referred the case to the Justice Department for investigation. A crime is only possible if Plame was undercover. If she wasn't, there is nothing to refer.

But don't take my word for it. How about the word of a retired CIA officer and classmate of Plame's:

Valerie Plame was a classmate of mine from the day she started with the CIA. I entered on duty at the CIA in September 1985. All of my classmates were undercover--in other words, we told our family and friends that we were working for other overt U.S. Government agencies. We had official cover. That means we had a black passport--i.e., a diplomatic passport. If we were caught overseas engaged in espionage activity the black passport was a get out of jail free card. A few of my classmates, and Valerie was one of these, became a non-official cover officer. That meant she agreed to operate overseas without the protection of a diplomatic passport. If caught in that status she would have been executed.

You see, at issue here is not the credibility of Joe Wilson. It is not whether Joe Wilson was sent to Niger by his wife. It is not whether Joe Wilson lied in his op-ed piece. It is whether or not a person exposed an undercover CIA agent. You could add 'in efforts to discredit Joe Wilson' or 'to correct an untruthful story', but those things are not relavent at all to the investigation.

Even without criminal charges, if it turns out that someone, Rove or not, did expose an undercover agent, there should be consequences. One wonders whether Republicans actually know when to use the word 'treasonous'.

UPDATE: Bush has no comment. I'm fine with that. I wish he wold have stuck to that theme since the beginning since now it looks a bit hypocritical, but he's right. He should wait until the investigation is complete until commenting. Why comment on something that isn't known at this point.