Has Smirky and his Henchmen/woman outted a CIA operative out of spite and as a warning to others?

Soon after Wilson disclosed his trip in the media and made the White House look bad. the payback came. Novak's July 14, 2003, column presented the back-story on Wilson's mission and contained the following sentences: "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate" the allegation.

Wilson caused problems for the White House, and his wife was outed as an undercover CIA officer. Wilson says, "I will not answer questions about my wife. This is not about me and less so about my wife. It has always been about the facts underpinning the President's statement in the state of the union speech."

So he will neither confirm nor deny that his wife--who is the mother of three-year-old twins--works for the CIA. But let's assume she does. That would seem to mean that the Bush administration has screwed one of its own top-secret operatives in order to punish Wilson or to send a message to others who might challenge it.

UPDATE: It pays to remember that when you play in the Bush League every pitch is a curveball. I think the Valerie Plume story is one of those stories with a lot of reverse-topspin. Has anybody thought that perhaps there is more to this than simply revenge against Amb. Wilson? Maybe there are some untold truths at work here that people are missing.

OK here’s the prevailing CW. The White House wants revenge on Wilson for his disclosures. They leak that his wife is a CIA operative. He’s outraged! Everybody in Left Blogistan is outraged and not surprised that the Bush Admin would stoop so low. Bushco gets their revenge. Her career is ruined. End of story.

Problem with this logic: I think that the CIA would be totally livid about having one of it’s own outed, especially one that might be a very important asset. It seems to me that SOP would be to leak their displeasure to the press about it. It would make all the papers and mainstream TV news and the media would be all over this story and there would be calls for investigations and whatnot.

But there has been nothing from the Agency or the newspapers about this. Nada zilch. Not a peep.

That’s very strange.

Plus, it’s hard to believe that the Bush Admin would take the chance of bringing the wrath of the CIA down on them over this, especially considering how much the CIA might know about the deceptions. Why would they want to open up that can of worms? Karl Rove is too smart for that anyway. He knows there are bones buried over in Langley that are better left buried.

Could the CIA be secretly happy about this? It’s hard to imagine that’s the case, but here’s my thought.

It’s probably safe to assume that Mr. Wilson was pretty upset about how the information he provided to the CIA about the yellowcake was used, as witnessed by his disclosures in the NYT and on Meet the Press. I imagine that he decided to come forward because he was disgusted and angry, and being a patriotic American he wanted the truth to be told.

It’s also possible that his wife shares the same hard feelings as her husband does, namely she’s disgusted and angry at the way the Agency has been treated by Chimpco over the use of it’s intellegence. I can’t imagine that the two of them would not have discussed all this before he made his disclosures. That was a big step forward out of the shadows for him.

Maybe she felt the need to do something too.

Just gathering what the article in The Nation said I’m left with the idea that she was some sort of mid-level or higher operative of in the WMD bureau. I think it’s safe to assume she knows all sorts of classified stuff that she can’t talk about, at least not on the record.

Let’s look at it this way. If I were a guessing man (and I am, btw) I would be guessing that Valerie Plume has been leaking classified information to a press source from her position in the CIA and the WH, in it’s quest to plug the leaks, found out about it and then cooked up a plan to deal with it.

So, they tell loyal soldier Bob Novak about it, he publishes it and she’s outed. Then she gets called into Tenents office and is told that she’s been compromised by those bastards and she can no longer be a valuable hidden asset because of it, so they demote her to the “bowels of the Agency”.

That would effectively end her career because how can she come out and say she’s been wronged and make a big stink about it without having to admit that she’s been passing classified information?

It works on so many levels:

#1 - The WH gets an annoying leak stopped and they get to destroy the leaker. You know they’re happy.

#2 - The WH gets to screw Amb. Wilson, big time. He’s very unhappy.

#3 - It’s the end of a leak, something that the CIA really isn’t wild about anyway. So they’re happy.

#4 - Valerie Plume becomes a symbol to the rest of the Agency of what can happen if you leak. She’s really unhappy and everybody else is thinking twice before they leak.

#5 - Novak gets the pleasure of fucking over a “traitor” and doing a good deed for the Party, so he’s really happy.

#6 - The CIA doesn’t have to go through the embarrassment of admitting they have a leaking problem. Considering the bad press the Agency has gotten lately they’ve got to be overjoyed about that.

That’s what I think is happening. I could be wrong.