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Valerie Plame, wife of Leakgate accuser Joseph Wilson, was outed as a CIA agent at least nine years before conservative columnist Robert Novak supposedly blew her cover three months ago in his column.

"The C.I.A. suspected that Aldrich Ames had given Mrs. Wilson's name (along with those of other spies) to the Russians before his espionage arrest in 1994," revealed the New York Times on Saturday.

In a column revealing the critical information for the first time since the Leakgate scandal exploded two weeks ago, Times columnist Nicholas Kristof explained that the Ames tip compromised Valerie Plame's undercover secrecy so thoroughly that "she was brought back to Washington for safety reasons."

At the time, he noted, Mrs. Wilson "was already in transition away from undercover work to management, and to liaison roles with other intelligence agencies. So this year, even before she was outed, she was moving away from 'noc' – which means non-official cover."

What's more, said the Times writer, Mrs. Wilson's intelligence connections became known a bit in Washington as she rose in the CIA - an assessment that stands in marked contrast to Mr. Wilson's portrayal of his wife's identity as being so secret that she was endangered when Novak revealed her name.

Concludes Kristof:

"All in all, I think the Democrats are engaging in hyperbole when they describe the White House as having put Mrs. Wilson's life in danger and destroyed her career; her days skulking along the back alleys of cities like Beirut and Algiers were already mostly over."

Apparently not. The CIA kept her in a clandestine role. If her cover was blown she would have been removed from operating as a field case officer. Had her cover been blown she would have been PNG'ed by the host country. Every foreign service officer serving in a hostile country is suspected of being a CIA officer. Being generally suspect as CIA and outed are very different matters.

In the end it doesn't matter. What does matter was Plame's status as clandestine officer. Whoever revealed her status, however alledgedly feeble or shakey, committed a crime. I make no excuses for crime, regardless of the good intentions or valorous motive.