Valerie Plame “kerfuffle” takes on new steam

James Taranto and his WSJ cohorts no doubt found it vastly amusing to refer dismissively to the Wilson-Plame scandal as as “kerfuffle.” I wonder if they are chuckling now. From the New York Times:

A group of former intelligence officers is pressing Congressional leaders to open an immediate inquiry into the disclosure last summer of the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer, Valerie Plame.

Their request, outlined in a letter on Tuesday to Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and others, reflects discontent and unrest within the intelligence services about the affair, along with concern that a four-month-old Justice Department investigation into the matter may never identify who was behind the disclosure.
….

It is unusual for former intelligence officers to petition Congress on a matter like this. The unmasking of Ms. Plame is viewed within spy circles as an unforgivable breach of secrecy that must be exhaustively investigated and prosecuted, current and former intelligence officials say.

Anger over the matter is especially acute because of the suspicion, under investigation by the Justice Department, that the disclosure may have been made by someone in the White House to punish Ms. Plames’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, for opposing administration policy on Iraq.

Between this and the breaking news of Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee infiltrating the Democrats’ computers, reading confidential memos and leaking them to the media, you’d think the Republicans would be getting mighty edgy right now.

So far with Bush, everything’s been like water off a duck’s back, like he’s been sprayed with some non-stick solution. But these two items are serious, and possibly extremely illegal. And if true, these are real scandals, far more significant and serious than having oral sex with an intern. I want to think that at some point they simply have to catch up with our swaggering, invincible leaders.

The Discussion: One Comment

And of course both scandals lead to right-wing sleazeball extraordinaire Bob Novak, who belongs in jail.

January 24, 2004 @ 12:35 am | Comment

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