Plame Was Covert....

Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have done an incredible job helping to destroy America by endlessly repeating the lie, that Valerie Plame was not covert when the White House revealed her secret identity.

h/t Crooks And Liars
Plame was ‘covert’ agent at time of name leak

By Joel Seidman
Producer
NBC News
Updated: 3:24 p.m. CT May 29, 2007

WASHINGTON - An unclassified summary of outed CIA officer Valerie Plame's employment history at the spy agency, disclosed for the first time today in a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, indicates that Plame was "covert" when her name became public in July 2003.

The summary is part of an attachment to Fitzgerald's memorandum to the court supporting his recommendation that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former top aide, spend 2-1/2 to 3 years in prison for obstructing the CIA leak investigation.

The oft repeated meme is that the whole world knew that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent. That she was not undercover at the time of the link.

But the truth is that she was managing hundreds of agents that were doing important Middle East surveillance work.

As a result of the leak, those agents had to be pulled from their assignments. Not long after this, Iran announced that traitors in their own country had been identified and executed.

The outing of Valerie Plame damaged our ability to know what is going on in Iran and other parts of the Middle East. So now we're left with The White House and radio pundits just making stuff up and passing it on as gospel. Our ability to really know what is going on in Iran, has been severely crippled by the White House.

Our enemies were given aid and comfort by this act. Outing a covert CIA agent is an act of espionage and during World War II, we hanged people who were convicted of this crime. Now we'll probably hand out Medals of Freedom for espionage against the US.

Rush Limbaugh and others want to tell you that Libby's conviction for obstructing an espionage investigation is no worse than Clinton lying about a blow job in a civil trial. Yet Clinton was never convicted and Libby was. The penalty for Libby's crime can go as far as execution as a traitor. To my knowledge the US has never handed down the death penalty for a civil perjury case, when the defendant was not under oath.

In earlier years, I would've wondered why people would defend traitors to our nation and try to downplay espionage as a non-existent crime. But now the loudest voices in our great nation have proven that they are not loyal to our country, but only to our party. They promote espionage and the destruction of the US Constitution in order to further the criminal behavior of one party. Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are devoted followers of the Republican Party and hide behind patriotism, even as they promote traitors and traitorous acts. They know no shame.

When we look at Libby's pardon/commutation, the same pundits are calling it a pardon for conviction of a crime for which no law exists. As if espionage or the obstruction of a an espionage investigation isn't illegal. Then they argue that the punishment was too harsh. So Libby does zero time, and donors cover his fine. Libby hasn't been punished for his crime at all.

Is insider stock trading a worse crime than espionage? Sure it is. Martha Stewart did time for her indiscretion, proving that being convicted of traitorous acts is worse than this.

Is possession of Marijuana worse than being a traitor to the US? Sure looks that way. If you're caught with a joint, you can get landed in jail or prison. No millionaires are going to donate money to your defense.

Espionage is now a non-crime in the US. Heck, betray your country and there might be a Medal of Freedom in it for you. President Bush might even kiss you.