True only with hindsight.
much less allowed him to speak to the press about it in a highly politicized manner
They didn't have the legal authority to stop him.
True only with hindsight.
And foresight.
"...much less allowed him to speak to the press about it in a highly politicized manner."
They didn't have the legal authority to stop him.
They knew in advance that they didn't have the legal authority to stop him. That's not hindsight.
They also, being an intelligence agency with secrets to keep and all, must have taken the time to find out a few things about the personality of the husband of one of their employees and ex-field agents, namely that he was a self-infatuated blowhard who regularly referred to her as "my wife, the spy". Therefore they must have known, assuming they still considered Plame a covert field agent, that there was too much of a risk that he and his big mouth might draw a lot of attention to himself and therefore collaterally to his wife, whether it was this Niger-gate or some other situation down the line.
His wife must have also known this and did not consider herself to be taking any significant risk not only by recommending Mr. Big Mouth for the job, but by attaching herself to this man to begin with and then staying with him as he kept blabbing her identity to everyone within earshot. That's not hindsight. If it is, the CIA is even more jacked up and devoid of common sense than we thought!
The only possible conclusions from there are that: a) both Plame and the CIA didn't think there was much of a downside if Plame was outed. b) in taking Plame's recommendation of him for the gig, they were counting on Wilson to indirectly 'out' her.
Either way, it could only be because they didn't consider her to be anything like a covert field agent anymore, meaning they believed she had ALREADY been outed by Aldrich Ames.