There are those "in the know" who take serious issue with the GOP talking points on the issue of "Mrs. Wilson's" CIA status. Thanks to Josh Marshall, we find that 11 former intelligence officers presented a letter to the Republican and Democratic leadership in the House and the Senate addressing this outrage.
Their examples of how these talking points are being interpreted are priceless.
Michael Medved stated on Larry King Live on July 12, 2005, "And let's
be honest about this. Mrs. Plame, Mrs. Wilson, had a desk job at Langley. She went back and forth every single day."
Victoria Toensing stated on a Fox News program with John Gibson on July 12, 2005 that, "Well, they weren't taking affirmative
measures to protect that identity. They gave her a desk job in Langley. You don't really have somebody deep undercover going back and forth to Langley, where people can see them."
Ed Rodgers, Washington Lobbyist and former Republican official, said on July 13, 2005 on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, "And also I think it is now a matter of established fact that Mrs. Plame was not a protected covert agent, and I don't think there's any meaningful investigation about that."
House majority whip Roy Blunt (R, Mo), on Face the Nation, July 17, 2005, "It certainly wouldn't be the first time that the CIA might
have been overzealous in sort of maintaining the kind of top-secret definition on things longer than they needed to. You know, this was a job that the ambassador's wife had that she went to every day. It was a desk job. I think many people in Washington understood that her employment was at the CIA, and she went to that office every day."
Now here's what the signers of this letter say about these quotes:
These comments reveal an astonishing ignorance of the intelligence
community and the role of cover. The fact is that there are thousands of U.S. intelligence officers who "work at a desk" in the Washington, D.C. area every day who are undercover. Some have official cover, and some have non-official cover. Both classes of cover must and should be protected.
I found this letter especially helpful in the light of reading over and over again that Ms. Plame was "in from the cold", if you will. And further that it is Mr. Wilson himself saying so. He did say something to the effect that the day Novak blew her cover she was no longer "out in the cold". Meaning by exposing her to the chill winds of the Potomac she was unceremoniously snatched in from the cold.
Oh well...