PlameGate Bigger than Watergate?
Mark Steyn takes a closer look:
*snip*The notion that Ms Plame Γ’β¬Λfears for her life’ is somewhat undermined by the fact that her gabby hubby, currently on TV, radio and sympathetic websites 22 hours a day, is clearly having a ball, loving the attention and happy to yuk it up about how he and the missus have been Γ’β¬Λdiscussing who would play her in the movie’. Quite what Ms Plame does for the CIA remains unclear. One alleged colleague says he’s worked with her for 30 years, which seems unlikely, as she’s only 40 and if the Company was that good at spotting early talent it would be in a lot better shape. It seems that at one point she was a NOC, which means Non-Official Cover, which means if the other side gets wind of who you really are, you’re on your own. But her time as a NOC looks to have ended five years ago, so that under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act leaking her name is not a criminal offence, though it may yet finish you off politically. It’s certainly morally dubious, not because it exposes Ms Plame and her camera-hogger of a husband to danger but because it could place in jeopardy many of her contacts in whatever countries she’s worked in over the years. *snip*
There is more to this story, IMO, than meets the eye. Leaks happen all the time in Washington. National Review did a piece on that recently – many are investigated, but the “leakers” are never found. While it’s important to get to the bottom of PlameGate, it’s important to note that, by my guess, only about 5-10% of the ppl actually complaining about the leak really do care about how it affects our national security. The rest are doing it for sheerly partisan purposes. No other way to explain it, especially in light of the fact that most, if not all of the complainers now didn’t so much as bat an eyelash when leaks permeated the air in Washington shortly after the war in Afghanistan began. This is not about national security to most of those seeking “justice” here and if you think that, I’ve got some sunny beachfront property in Antarctica I’d like to sell you.