What a dumb reporter. Doesn't he realize that Valerie was speaking in spook-talk code words? What is wrong with him? She gave him the code words twice, and he flubbed it.
He was supposed to respond with "Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them."
Whereupon Plame was supposed to hand him a microdot containing Cheney's numbered Swiss bank account where Halliburton has been sending the payoff money. I'm surprised that Valerie didn't down the cyanide capsule right then and there.