You suggest a most sober and sensible approach.

Of course, Administration officials are not going to make it easy on themselves by stonewalling, seemingly giving special breaks (i.e. DOJ giving the White House an extra day for shredding), the President himself seemingly uninterested in questioning his staff, and the AG refusing to appoint a special prosecutor. And the attempts to smear a good man like Ambassador Wilson-- who served under Reagan and Bush Pere for God's sake-- is just not going to win any friends, either.

I just wish more people (on all sides of the political spectrum) would just sit back and say: this MIGHT be huge. Let's see how it plays out.

My original take on this story from last July (as was the take of Mark Kleiman and others) came down to 5 words: "I hope its not true".
Sadly, Bush has had over 2 months to get to the bottom of this, and felt that there were more important things than a possible catastrophic breach of national security of a covert agent whose job it was to gather intelligence and analyze... weapons of mass destruction!

If the story IS true-- I agree that I its too big for the spin machine, and all Americans should be outraged about it. If its NOT true, then its not true, and no one will win any points for having gloated about it.

As best I can determine at this point, the "facts" (to the extent facts exist in Washington D. C.) regarding l'affaire plame are as follow:
1. Ms. Plame is not now a "covert operative" of the CIA
2. It appears to be dubious that she ever was in a covert position
3. She has been identified for years in her husband's resume as a CIA Officer/Analyst
4. When Robert Novak called the CIA regarding her status, they confirmed her employment, which they NEVER do with respect to covert personnel.
5. She is listed as a CIA Analyst in "Who's Who in America."
There is more in the same vein, but it all goes to the point that Ms. Plame was well and thoroughly "outed" for years before the present flap arose. Moreover, it would appear -- though I am no lawyer (thank God) -- that Ms. Plame is NOT covered by the pertinent law regarding protection of covert agents. But now that the Hounds of the Left are in full cry, I doubt that such trivialities as facts will bother them much; they never have in the past.

The Curmudgeon

That's right Curmudgeon. As Twain said, "A lie can get half way around the world before the truth gets its boots on." That's the game plan on the Left.

"William M. Cooper" wrote:
Subject: This is the letter Is sent the New York Times

.... I think that even if you don't find as much as a
primer to a bullet cartridge, you have still found
thousands of body parts of the thousands of innocent
civilians who were butchered at the hands of a madman.
You have unending stories of the victims coming
forward and testifying of the brutality that they
lived in every day. You have the Kurds who were
gassed to death. Not soldiers, but women and
children. You have the jubilation of the freed people
as they tore down the statues of their tormentor and
beat the head of it with the bottom of their shoes;
which for them was the highest insult to offer up.
You do the President, Great Britton's Prime Minister,
the military forces from differing contries and their
sending nations a great injustice by calling the war a
bad move to have taken. To clarify this position;
what if Hitler hadn't been grabbing all the countries
he did, but kept to all his secret projects and his
genecidal activities. Would we not had gone after him
once we learned just how brutal he was and how
murderous his power over the peoples of Europe had
become? Perhaps you would have wrote then something
like: "well it's only Jews, Gypsies, Retards,
Handicappers, Elderly, Ministers and a mixed group of
nonGermans, so why waste the fuel and manpower?". I'm
so sick to my stomach to say, that the way the news
and Democrats are using airtime and prose for nothing
better than showing the world your total contempt for
the suffering masses around the world. A very
obnoxious and macabre way to slam the integrity of a
man you obviously want to loose the next election,
while doing it over the tombs of those whose blood
cries out for some justice, and protection to those
they leave behind. The media was so biased against
the then, Governor Bush during Bush's election that it
really opened the eyes of a lot of people who saw your
tactics. But you still didn't learn anything. When
the war started, the networks started the propaganda
machinery all over again and lost ratings, because of
their baseless cries of destruction to the American
Military and other such nonsense. Now you're at it
again with slam articles about not finding weapons of
mass destruction.
I think you and every body else who has verbated all
the parties previously mentioned, owes President Bush
and Prime Minister Blair, and all the other noble men
and women who freed the multiple people groups who
were brutalized in Iraq a huge and resounding pat on
the back for what they did do and not what a madman
with ample warning was able to successfully ship
accross his borders and hide before the war started.
The intelligence that the President used was also from
previously found items that were found before the war
by UN inspectors who saw the illegal hardware with
their own eyes. So continue the antiBush/Blair
stance you seem to be insanely devoted to, but you'll
not find a sympathetic ear from me, because it is
obvious that your minds are so polluted with
prejudice, that every thing appears evil in your eyes,
even when good is all around and in clear sight.
I say this to your shame.
For our noble President, England's Prime Minister, the
troops, the victims, the grieving mothers, fathers,
children of Iraq.
William M. Cooper
1227 W. Kenedy #52
Kingsville, TX. 78363
http://www.1stbooks.com/bookview/8857
coopr2000@yahoo.com