Plame Paranoia

The media is in a tizzy over the chance that it was Karl Rove, President Bush's key advisor, who "outed" Valerie Plame. Some facts (and common sense) that are never mentioned in the reporting:

1. Many, many people, including many members of the press, knew Valerie Plame was in the CIA.
2. Valerie Plame had twins three years ago -- not likely to be James Bonding it up overseas.
3. The CIA is a big governmental agency with lots and lots of employees, most of whom are not "covert." You can look at their job postings on their webpage for crying out loud. Just because someone is in the CIA does not mean they are "covert." In fact, it is vastly more likely that they are not covert. Jumping from CIA to "covert" agent is like saying someone must be a member of Special Forces because they happen to be in the Army.
4. Given 1, 2 and 3, it is highly likely that Karl Rove (and probably other sources) had no idea that Valerie Plame was "undercover."
5. It is not clear, in any event, that Plame was, in fact, "undercover." The definition is pretty clear in the statute that you have to have been overseas undercover within the previous five years (neither Wilson nor Plame have, to my knowledge, claimed this to be true of her), and the CIA has to be taking steps to keep your identity secret (no evidence that this was true).

The upshot of this is that it is highly unlikely that a prosecutor would even consider indicting Karl Rove based on the email from Matt Cooper. The extreme unlikelihood that the whole episode amounts to a hill of beans is why there are several oddly synchronous articles in the left-wing press calling for Rove to be fired regardless of whether he did anything wrong:

“But let's put aside the legal issues for a moment. This email demonstrates that Rove committed a firing offense. He leaked national security information as part of a fierce campaign to undermine Wilson, who had criticized the White House on the war on Iraq.”

--David Corn, “Why Bush Has to Fire Rove” in The Nation

"Rove did not mention Plame by name, but that hardly matters (except possibly in a narrow legalistic sense, and I have serious doubts even about that). Merely saying that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA was enough to blow Valerie Plame's cover. It's possible, even likely, that Rove didn't know Plame was undercover. But that distinction is relevant only to the question of whether Patrick Fitzgerald should prosecute Rove under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, which requires that a covert agent be exposed "intentionally." For a White House official to be so reckless as to reveal, even unknowingly, the identity of an undercover CIA employee is a firing offense. Period."

--Timothy Noah, “Turd Blossom [Bush’s nickname for Rove] Must Go” in Slate

The jig is up when even left-wing pundits are admitting that Rove probably didn't do anything illegal. So what is it that they are saying... Rove played hardball with political enemies? Wow! I'm shocked, shocked that there's gambling going on here.