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First of all, go read Bob Novak's column here. He provides a detailed account of exactly how this came up, the context of the conversations (including contact with the CIA prior to the release of his column that has caused this whole fuss), and his reasons for reporting the name.

Second, I think that I have covered this issue with you already, but I will do so one more time. If you want to keeping believe what you believe, then that is your issue. You are focused, solely, on the referral of the investigation, which actually means little, and you are missing the bigger picture.

Mrs. Wilson (Plame) does work for the CIA.
Mr. Novak's column in July was about why Mr. Wilson was sent to Niger.
Mrs. Wilson was involved in the process that sent Mr. Wilson to Niger to investigate the Uranium claims.
Her involvement is the reason why she was mentioned in the story at all. In fact, her involvement was the only reason that sending Mr. Wilson to Niger made any sense, because he was anti-war and anti-Bush.

Interestingly, perhaps ironically, point #3 also shows that no one in the White House could have been involved in the decision to send Mr. Wilson to Niger, because he was and is, indeed, devotely anti-Bush. If the White House was in control of the original decision to send anyone, it wouldn't have been him. This points to an interesting thought that I will get to in a minute.
During Mr. Novak's fact gathering phase, prior to the release of his column, the CIA did not make it clear that Mrs. Wilson was a covert operative/agent/spy/whatever.

Novak states, "He [his CIA contact] never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name" (Source)

The CIA could have, without revealing any specific details, nipped this in the bud by explaining to Mr. Novak that her position at the agency is a sensitive and/or a covert position. Period. He would have still ran his column, but would have excluded her name.

Of course, anyone could have deduced who Mr. Wilson's wife was by looking on his own web site biography (Middle East Institute) or, as Novak points out, in Mr. Wilson's "Who's Who in America" biography. As has been recounted here on FR (I don't know, about 1,000 times now?), written by both Mr. May and Mr. Novak, and is starting to make its way into the mainstream media, he name was plainly published.

The fact is, this women's identity was going to be known at some point.

Actually, one could (rightly) argue that Mr. Wilson's op-ed in the NY Times was the first domino in the revelation to her identity. His very public claims were going to warrant a reaction from someone.

The demoCREEPs would have you believe that the publication of the name came directly from the very tip-top of Bush White House, specifically Karl Rove. This is, simply, not the case.

The fact is, a reporter (Mr. Novak) dug into the story about why in the hell this guy was sent to begin with (Novak: "I was curious why a high-ranking official in President Bill Clinton's National Security Council (NSC) was given this assignment"). He found out why.

He talked to the administration. "He [the administration official] said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife." It wasn't anyone at the tip-top of the White House; rather, "It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger."

He talked to CIA. The CIA official said that would prefer the name not be used, but didn't request that it not be published. Mr. Novak, again, would have withheld the name if asked. By Mr. Wilson's own choice, his wife's name was already public. So, whether Mr. Novak was told Mrs. Wilson's name by an administration official, the CIA official, or a research assistant the Chicago Sun-Times, it is besides the point.

So what's really going on here?

It's simple. Politics. Pure and unadulterated politics.

The people at the CIA who decided to send Mr. Wilson have an agenda. Whatever their agenda is, it isn't to help the Bush administration. They sent Mr. Wilson to Niger knowing that he wouldn't be the most motivated guy to find Iraqi connections to uranium, because he --publicly-- didn't support the war in Iraq. Before he was sent, this was a known fact. When he got there, he sat on his butt for 8 days, drinking mint tea, and dismissing a potential claim that Iraq had contact with someone in Niger about uranium only because it wasn't "significant quantities". (So there was evidence, just not enough of it in Mr. Wilson's mind. Yeah, ok. )

His involvement with EPIC, "a far-Left group that opposed not only the U.S. military intervention in Iraq but also the sanctions and the no-fly zones that protected Iraqi Kurds and Shias from being slaughtered by Saddam" (Source), was well-known. His involvement with the far-left moveon.org is more evidence of his opposition to President Bush and his policies.

The bottom line is this: this is about the referral, it is about making the Bush administration weaker and getting themselves back in power. Unfortunately, the demoCREEPs actions, as usual, is making our country weaker too, which they don't seem to have a problem with.

Do you?

First of all, go read Bob Novak's column here.

I have read *both* of Novak's articles, and his explanations doesn't really hold water.

First of all, he regrets 'lavishing' the term 'operative' on Plame, but offers no credible reasons as to why he would use that exact, specific term. He could have easily obfuscated Plame's identify by describing her simply as 'someone with close ties to Wilson'.

It was, in the context of the article, completely unnecessary to use Valerie Plame's name at all. And there was NO reason whatsoever to describe her as an agency operative. Novak's been around long enough to know exactly what the words 'operative' and 'CIA' mean together in the same sentence.

In fact, her involvement was the only reason that sending Mr. Wilson to Niger made any sense, because he was anti-war and anti-Bush.

No, her involvement could only explain why Wilson himself was sent, not why someone was being sent in the first place.

During Mr. Novak's fact gathering phase, prior to the release of his column, the CIA did not make it clear that Mrs. Wilson was a covert operative/agent/spy/whatever.

This is what Novak actually said.

...the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help. He asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad.

Bottom line is, Novak was SPECIFICALLY asked NOT to use her name, and he did so anyway despite pretty broad hints that Plame was indeed an agent. Regardless of this, he was certainly wasn't authorized by the CIA to identify her as a CIA operative.

The CIA could have, without revealing any specific details, nipped this in the bud by explaining to Mr. Novak that her position at the agency is a sensitive and/or a covert position. Period.

You don't think that telling Novak that she'd had 'foreign assignments' in the past, and that public disclosure of her name and relationship to the CIA would cause 'travel difficulties' for her wasn't a broad enough hint that she was a covered agent?

And no, actually they couldn't have 'nipped this in the bud' by explaining that Plame's position at the CIA was covert because that would be tantamount to disclosing classified material to someone who certainly wasn't authorized to receive it: Robert Novak.

Of course, anyone could have deduced who Mr. Wilson's wife was by looking on his own web site biography... The fact is, this women's identity was going to be known at some point.

???? Plame's maritial status and identity weren't the issues at stake here. The issue that was at stake was Plame's work status at the CIA, something that Novak publically confirmed for the whole world to see.

By Mr. Wilson's own choice, his wife's name was already public.

???? Of course his wife's name is already public!!! It's probably in the local marriage register. Again, that's totally irrelevant: what is relevant is openly revealing in a newspaper the full name of a CIA operative, regardless of whether or not she was married, divorced or single!!!!

It's simple. Politics. Pure and unadulterated politics.

No, it has gone way beyond simple politics. Some senior level administration officials AND someone in the CIA have inadvertently blown the cover of one of their agents and any projects that they might have been involved in.

This goes completely against the first rule of any intelligence gathering organisation: protect your agents. Because if you don't, if your agents believe that you're incompetent enough to accidentally allow their cover to be blown, they aren't going to trust you, and they certainly will not work for you either.

Yes, the Democrats are going to have a field day with this one. Even worse, they're completely justified in running with it.