I suggest that we stop using phrases about the Plame affair such as "the outing of Valerie Plame", "the outing of a covert agent", etc. That is really not broad enough to cover what really happened, and it allows the right wing noise machine to trivialize it by using narrow arguments and keeping the focus on one woman and her husband. Was she covert or not? Did she send Joe Wilson to Niger or not? Was she just a desk jockey or not? And so on.
What we should be saying is "When the Bush administration blew the cover of its own spy network", "the outing of a covert network", or "revealed the existence of an entire clandestine network probing weapons proliferation", or something along those lines. Let's get it into the public lexicon that this is not just a question of whether or not the Intelligence Identities Protection Act was violated or whether or not one woman's career was destroyed, but that our National Security was compromised.
This was brought home to me again yesterday in cmkay's diary and Brent Budowsky's article at noquarter: Toensing Doesn't Know Dick About Val
Let me quote Budowsky:
Valerie Plame worked with networks of people abroad helping her, and our country, in the battle against terrorism, including terrorism and WMD. Valerie Plame undoubtedly had various associations with sensitive people, companies and organizations that were almost certainly compromised by acts that lacked honor and patriotism, and hurt our country, and hurt our security, and hurt our troops, and increased dangers for our community no matter what the juridical status of those acts.
When these dastardly deeds are done though (sic) leaks that Lloyd Bentsen and Barry Goldwater had equal contempt for and disgust towards:
- real people can die.
- real foreign sources fail to trust our honor and withdraw their cooperation.
- real intelligence networks are compromised and real intelligence is lost or corrupted.
- real front companies are exposed which only heightens the damage, danger and death for others who serve covertly or cooperate with our clandestine services.
- real damage is done to our security and real services are performed for those seeking WMD to attack us, by violating and endangering those who work covertly to kill them, before they attack us.
- real American troops are killed our (sic) wounded on the battlefield because delusion, dishonesty and deadly obsessions corrupt decision making in Washington.
This issue is too big and too tragic to allow the MSM and the Bush administration to focus all the attention on two people: Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame Wilson. We must broaden its scope in the public mind or the public will never understand what all the fuss is really about and people like Victoria Toensing will successfully continue to keep the attention away from the true seriousness of the crime that was committed when Cheney et al decided to cover their asses by BLOWING AN ENTIRE SPY NETWORK!
So let's start using, and insisting on others using, language that broadens the meme to go beyond Valerie and Joe to the depth and breadth of the real crime that was committed by this administration.
Let's hear your suggestions for phrases that are short and sweet and get the point across!