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.

[kcvl]

"The 10 former intelligence officers who signed the letter include respected intelligence analysts and retired case officers, including at least two, John McCavitt and William Wagner, who were C.I.A. station chiefs overseas. The former analysts include Larry C. Johnson, a former analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department's intelligence branch, and Ray Close and Ray McGovern, former C.I.A. analysts in the agency's Near East division."

Times doesn't delve into the background of "respected analysts" McGovern and Close, part of an ad-hoc group calling itself Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

McGovern has made some interesting conspiratorial anti-war musings regarding the Iraq war. Last April, he suggested the U.S. would plant WMD if they failed to find it: "Some of my colleagues are virtually certain that there will be some weapons of mass destruction found, even though they might have to be planted. I'm just as sure that some few will be found, but not in an amount that by any stretch would justify the charge of a threat against the US or anyone else."

[summer]

Re post #14 - Maybe...

[summer]

Joe Wilson was a seeker of fame first and foremost.

I don't understand why he wrote and published a NYT Op Ed piece while impltying in the article, it seems to me, that he was on an official trip -- when those official trips require a signed confidentiality agreement.

[summer]

Re your post #11 - see post #59.

[summer]

LOL...

[summer]

Re your post #20 - see my post #56. Today the WA Post is reporting quite the twist in this matter.

[summer]

dead (I've got my eye out for Mullah Omar.)

Glad to know you're on it! :)

[Migraine]

Well, from what I see, she is not covergirl material. However, she still qualifies as "blown covergirl"...

[Callahan]

Lassie O'Donnell. I like that. He has made my list of the most annoying people on earth.

[summer]

I thought someone mentioned Byron York on this thread, but maybe not. York is now on Huffington Whatever, asking Lawrence Lassie to answer a question or two.

York is also stating the obvious since no one else will: No outside observer (including O'Donnell, unless he has inside information) actually knows what's going on. He also wonders why Dershowitz is saying what he's saying.

You can read York's post and comments HERE.

[summer]

Re post #69 - Credit for the moniker goes to: small voice in the wilderness

[Rose of Sharn]

Uh Oh! Better get out my stick! : D

[pissant]

Who?

[Dashing Dasher]

IMO, this is yet another example of how FR posters make news...

First post.

[pissant]

I made the news??

[Dashing Dasher]

Don't you?

[pissant]

Not yet. ;o)

[Gumlegs]

If Picaso painted that, he copied it from Marcel Duchamp.

[summer]

IMO, this is yet another example of how FR posters make news...

First post.

Dashing, let me get this straight: you've been here since 2004 (and I've been here since 2000) -- and you think this is my "first post?" Do a search on FR for "The Jeb Bush Nobobdy Knows" -- and then try to guess how many posts I've done. In the meantime, no offense to you, but I will be ROTFLMAO at your post.... it's pretty obvious YOU'RE the newbie here! Welcome. :)