Remember when Robert Novak mentioned Valerie Plame, wife of Joe Wilson, in an article. This mention soon became a national scandal that put Scooter Libby in jail and painted the Bush Administration as bullying Wilson's wife to get revenge for his contrary report on Nigerian yellow cake. As the story goes, Plame was a CIA agent and releasing her name made her a target. Also, it's illegal to reveal the identity of an undercover agent. Of course, she wasn't undercover and the law didn't apply. Also, it was eventually revealed that Richard Armitage - not Scotter Libby - leaked her name to Novak. But, as mentioned, that wasn't illegal and thus he was never prosecuted. This faux scandal spawned a movie (Fair Game, 2010). What we can glean from this is that the press takes it extremely seriously if a CIA agent is revealed, even if that agent is not covert.
Last week, the Obama Administration revealed the name of the Afghan CIA station chief, a person who is (was) covert. Unlike Plame, this is a real leak. Where is Patrick Fitzgerald? Clearly, someone in the Obama Whitehouse needs to be jailed and the rest of the administration needs to be harassed. What, the story is over already? Didn't the Plame story go on for months and years? Did someone at least get fired? No?
It is good to see the press showing balance in how they treat a Republican administration vs. a Democrat administration.
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