Valerie Plame, Nude! [Was today's Slate article inspired by a FR poster?]

Slate ^ | Wednesday, July 6, 2005 | Timothy Noah

[summer]

Valerie Plame, Nude!

Well, without sunglasses and a scarf, anyway.

By Timothy Noah, Slate

Posted Wednesday, July 6, 2005, at 7:40 AM PT


Plame reveals herself in the madding media
crowd. [3rd photo down, on right]

Valerie Plame's career in the Central Intelligence Agency was destroyed by whoever leaked her name to Robert Novak, and that is a terrible wrong. If we ever find out who the leaker is, the president must fire him. (Or them.) That said, I'm starting to weary of the story line that Plame avoids the media spotlight. "She has guarded her privacy" and "shunned publicity," Scott Shane wrote in the July 5 New York Times. That was true once, but it isn't true now. Shane pointed out a glaring exception late in 2003, when Plame "posed with her husband for a Vanity Fair photographer, wearing sunglasses and with a scarf over her blond hair." On Jan. 5, 2004, her husband, Joe Wilson, was quoted telling Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post that there was no remaining national-security reason to continue hiding Plame's face, since her cover was "completely blown." Then why the scarf and sunglasses? "She had to be clothed as generic blonde in order to deal with the genuine concern that some wacko on the street might easily identify her," Wilson explained. "It was just in the interest of personal security." Wilson repeated the need for this precaution in his memoir, The Politics of Truth:

She had already been described as the beautiful blond that she is, and her cover had long since been blown, so the only concern remaining was whether strangers would be able to use a photo to recognize her in public. With proper precautions taken, I saw no reason to deprive ourselves of the pleasure of being photographed together as the happily married couple that we are.

Fair enough. But on Page 70 of the July 2005 Vanity Fair—the one with Nicole Kidman on the cover and Mark Felt's Deep Throat confession inside—there's a photograph of the happy couple at Vanity Fair's party celebrating the Tribeca Film Festival. No scarf and no sunglasses. Plame, seated, is smiling and leaning into the camera. If you're a wacko on the street, please avert your eyes.

[Dashing Dasher]

You are young at heart, my dear!

;-)

[gop_gene]

Beautiful blonde? I guess if the libbies keep saying it long enough, someone will believe it eventually. She is an attractive woman, but the lamestream media and her husband have been playing her up as some kind of blonde bombshell secret agent ("Jane Blonde!") since this whole stupid story began.

Yes, she's attractive but no big deal, and by no stretch of the imagination beautiful, a description that is flung around way too often just to sex up, to glamorize, a person/story (the bug-eyed bride Jennifer Wilbanks being a hilarious example).

[summer]

 This article currently show up 916 times on a Google search:

Results 1 - 10 of about 916 for "valerie Plame, nude". (0.26 seconds) 

So, if you happen to know anyone bothered by it being posted on FR, just tell them it pops up on 915 other sites as well. (I notice the Dem site owners are posting interviews and love-fests all over the place with Wilson since this article appeared in SLATE.)

[stockpirate]

Actually Mr. Wilson outed his wife on his own webpage prior to the Rove incident.

And just a note about the reporter still in jail for not revealing her source. Is it because it isn't ROVE, but maybe a top Dembocrat?

[Callahan]

Right. Plenty of people knew was CIA. How "covert" can you be when you commute to work every morning? I love how all these media organizations filed briefs arguing that no crime was committed, then go and demand Rove be thrown in jail.

And since when does the media give a crap about divulging governments secrets anyway? Well duh--since it looked like they could nail Karl Rove. I friggin' hate the Whitehouse press corps.

[summer]

RE the photos in your post #24 and #25 -- This photo was just shown, twice, at the beginning and end of a 15 minute segment on the Plame matter at the top of the hour, on FOX TV's Hannity & Colmes show. Twice! I am thinking maybe they found this photo here on FR... thanks to you guys!