Poetic Justice
According to this Newsweek article, the CIA is preventing Valerie Plame from writing about her time as a “nonofficial cover” officer (or NOC). As you might expect, she’s whining about that:
But in what could be a precursor to a separate legal battle, Plame recently hired a lawyer to challenge the CIA Publications Review Board, which must clear writings by former employees. The panel refused Plame permission to even mention that she worked for the CIA because she served as a “nonofficial cover” officer (or NOC) posing as a private businesswoman, according to an adviser to Plame, who asked not to be identified discussing a sensitive issue. “She believes this will effectively gut the book,” said the adviser. Larry Johnson, a former colleague, said the agency’s action seems punitive, given that other ex-CIA undercover officers have published books. But even Plame’s friends acknowledge that few NOCs have done so. CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said the panel was still having “ongoing” talks with Plame to resolve the dispute. “The sole yardstick,” he said, is that books “contain no classified information.” A spokesman for Simon & Schuster, Plame’s publisher, declined to comment.
It wasn’t that long ago that Amb. Joe Wilson whined about how she was outed and that this was making America less secure and that he wanted Karl Rove frogmarched out of the White House. Now, Mrs. Wilson is upset that she can’t spill her guts about her time as a NOC in a best-selling biography.
How can we say that Scooter Libby should be imprisoned for mentioning Mrs. Wilson’s name but that it’s fine for Mrs. Wilson to talk about highly classified information in a book?
At the end of the day, I think what will happen is that Libby will be acquitted and that Mrs. Wilson’s book deal with Simon & Schuster will be canceled because they thought they were buying juicy secrets about the CIA, not a boring biography about a self-important government employee.
I also found it delicious that Michael Isikoff, the man who co-authored a book about the Wilsons with David Corn, is the reporter who wrote this article.
Technorati Tags: Plamegate, Joe Wilson, Scooter Libby, CIA, Valerie Plame
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
January 8th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
[...] Cross-posted at California Conservative Categories: White House, Intel, Corruption, CIA, Crime, Scandals, Subversives | [...]
January 8th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
The Valerie PLame/Joe Wilson debacle is one of the worst scams in US government since Watergate. People still say “Bush lied, people died” not understanding that it was WILSON who lied….and they continue to do so, even after their co-conspirators have left their sides.
Pathetic.