September 30, 2003

Bush LIIIEEEDDDD!!!! Part D'oh!

You know, about this whole CIA-Lady-Bush-administration-scandal-leak-blah-blah, I have just this to say:

What the hell kind of name is Plame, anyway? I mean, what the fuck*, "Plame"? Where did the boat that carried that name into the world come from? Is it German (derived from the name of the von Plämmensingenstrassenecken family that had to flee their ancient fiefdom of Höhenblücherdienstagmittwochstein in the seventeenth century due to a falling out between the morganatic Duke of Upper Farvergknucklesandwich and Count Otto of Bad Medizin)? Or English? ("There's always been a Plame to carry on the family name in our village on the Thames!") Or did some clerk at immigration come in late with a hangover, see the collection of c's, z's, and other letters God Almighty meant to be separated by vowels and say: "Fuck* it, you're Mr. Plame from now on" to the hapless Czech immigrant standing meekly before him.

Plame. It's not a name -- it's a typo.

*Copyright 2003 Andrew Northrup, aka "The Poorman" ("now with twenty percent more 'fuck'!")

Posted by Andrea Harris at September 30, 2003 07:42 PM
Comments

That's the best you can come up with? A CIA operative is outed, putting your precious national security in danger (not to mention her missions and possibly her life)... and the best you can come up with is a tease about her name? I mean, I know you've never been big on burden of proof or relevance, but... her name? Please.

(OK, you can ban me and call me a commie now.)

Posted by: Huh? at September 30, 2003 at 10:26 PM

Nah. I prefer to leave my blog open to you so you can leave more stupid comments that my other readers can mock.

Posted by: Andrea Harris at September 30, 2003 at 10:36 PM

Fair enough... ironic as hell, but fair enough. Really, I was just surprised that your level of vitriol was not only tempered, but pretty much gone in favor of a really immature jibe at someone who has been wronged in a big way, whether by the White House or not.

I don't understand that. I mean, I've seen you do better than that with less. What gives?

Posted by: Huh? at September 30, 2003 at 11:10 PM

It is not pretty, but it is cognitive dissonance.

Posted by: ESP at September 30, 2003 at 11:21 PM

Yes, Andrea how can you make fun of this poor woman who was wronged, whose very life is in danger?! She was a super secret agent working deep undercover by publishing articles under her - maiden name.

That was her cover. Publishing CIA-related documents under her maiden name. If she was undercover, then I’m James Bond.

That has to be the stupidest ‘cover’ I’ve ever heard of. Is Maxwell Smart in charge of undercover ops at the CIA?

Poor Valerie. She lived a life of danger. Everyone she met stayed a stranger. They should have given her a number and taken away her Plame (sorry)

Posted by: mary at October 1, 2003 at 12:04 AM

Thats such a lame post its hard to put in words. Thank god tim blair gives you traffic, otherwise you'd get none at all based on that quality of blogging.

Posted by: Tom at October 1, 2003 at 11:23 AM

Some of these comments put me in mind of a mob descending on someone and shrieking at her, "We don't even know you exist! So there!"

Posted by: McGehee at October 1, 2003 at 12:02 PM

Andrea, you missed the best thing to come out of this story:

Why would master do this? Why he tricks us, and betrays us?

No, it couldn't have been master! Master is good and kind, and gives us wriggly fishes from his table, so juicy sweet! No, no, never master!

But why would the names of lady spiesies be in the newspapers? It's so confusing, it makes our brainses feel all swirly and bad!

No, master never said those nassty things! Never! It was the lady spysy herself who did it, never master! Gollum! Gollum!

It must have been ... libruhlss!! Yes, libruhs, all conspirings and scheme-ings! Tricksy, sneaksy, and false! Libruhls have always hated the precious! They want to destroy the precious! But we won't them, will we, precious! We will wring their necks!

Posted by: Dark Avenger at October 1, 2003 at 12:21 PM

To:"Huh?",

Do you really give a shit about anyone in the CIA?

I really doubt it, and if you were truthful with yourself, you'd admit it.

Posted by: Kevin Smith at October 1, 2003 at 01:11 PM

I followed the link to Andrew Northrup and saw this curiously underplayed bit of reporting:

Julian Borger in the Guardian (audio file): the Plame leaker was fucking Karl Rove.

It's all about sex! I guess that means we're all supposed to lose interest in it now.

Posted by: Paul Zrimsek at October 1, 2003 at 02:10 PM

"Julian Borger in the Guardian (audio file): the Plame leaker was fucking Karl Rove."

So we just need to find out who Karl is sleeping with and then we have the culprit.

Posted by: derf at October 1, 2003 at 02:22 PM

Since AG Ashcroft, as we know, is hiding under everyone's bed, this shouldn't take too long. Interrogate all of Karl's old plames and the case is solved.

Posted by: Paul Zrimsek at October 1, 2003 at 02:42 PM

I don't know why anyone is still bothering about this stuff... Novak decisively cleared all this up.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20031001.shtml

Posted by: Matt at October 1, 2003 at 05:45 PM

Novak is outright lying in order to cover his own ass. It was his fuck up that put Rove in this situation. Even Drudge ran a Newsweek article where Novak claims the info was given to him.

Posted by: ug at October 1, 2003 at 07:41 PM

Huh,

...your precious national security in danger

"Your"?

You couldn't have better communicated your idiocy if you'd tried. It's EVERYONE's security. Okay?

Besides, nobody knows if this chick was a covert operative or not. And if she was, why did her husband take a high-profile assignment like going to Africa? And why did he start shooting his mouth off to the newspapers, if he was worried about secrecy?

Posted by: Sasha Castel at October 1, 2003 at 09:44 PM

First, the Plame affair is not the work of the Dems or the damn liberals or left/liberal Blogistan. The CIA formally requested the Justice Department to investigate this matter. George Tenet himself is involved. That means that if the Dems, the damn liberals, and left/liberal Blogistan decided the Plame affair was a bore, it would still proceed.

Second, that Valerie Plame has an entry in Who's Who or did not otherwise disguise her name doesn't matter a bit. It was not her name that needed to be kept secret, it was her activities as a covert operative—and she was a covert operative, as retired CIA analyst Larry Johnson has confirmed. The attempts of Novak, et alia to portray the matter otherwise are as disingenuous as Clinton's nonsense about the meaning of the word "is." But as much as I dislike the Great Triangular, I think that blowing an agent's cover is higher on the scale of high crimes and misdemeanors than getting blown by an intern.

Third, Wilson is not a Demohack. He served under Clinton, but also under Bush the Elder, and Ronald Reagan. Bush the Elder praised him for his service in Iraq, when he sheltered Americans at the embassy and other diplomatic facilities, in defiance of Saddam Hussein's threat to execute anyone who did not turn over foreign nationals. He gave press briefings with a noose about his neck, explaining this by saying "If you want to execute me, I'll bring my own [expletive] rope."

Last, I find the inability of the administration's uncritical defenders to keep the chronology straight disingenuous. Glenn Reynolds wonders why someone with Wilson's views got the job of investigating nuclear weapons, posting a link to another's weblogger's report of a talk Wilson gave—after he had gone public with his story and his wife's cover was blown.

If there are any honest, honorable conservatives left, they'd be saying, "I supported the war, and believe what we've done there is the best for world security and the people of Iraq. The President acts in good faith and with the best interest of the country in his heart and mind. But this situation is a disgrace, and the President should take it upon himself to ask for the resignations of the staff members and officials who did this."

I'm not holding my breath.

Posted by: Curtiss Leung at October 1, 2003 at 09:58 PM

Curtiss:

T
o
o

l
o
n
g

Didn't read.

Posted by: Andrea Harris at October 1, 2003 at 10:09 PM

your loss.

Posted by: adam at October 1, 2003 at 11:39 PM

Sasha’s right. There just hasn’t been any proof that Plame was covert. All the evidence I’ve seen points in the other direction.

Retired CIA analyst Larry Johnson confirmed that the 40 year old Plame was working undercover for three decades. Was she a child prodigy?

If there were any honest, honorable leftists left, they'd be saying, "The President acts in good faith and with the best interest of the country in his heart and mind. Despite this, we hate him more than the murderous terrorists and Muslim fundamentalists who seek to destroy us and our way of life. We know that the Clinton impeachment was a waste of money and time, it did nothing to help the country, and yet we are doing everything in our power to prove drag the country through the mud again, because we want revenge – for the stolen election, for Whitewater, for everything bad that’s ever happened to us. If this scandal doesn’t do the trick, we’ll dig up another one, and another one, we’ll never stop until Bush is destroyed..because we hate him. With our last breath, we will spit at him. For hate’s sake - we hate him…

Anyway, if the left was made up of good and honest people they’d say what I’m telling them to say. Not like I'm putting words in anyone's mouth or anything.

Posted by: mary at October 1, 2003 at 11:44 PM

Plame was hardly a deep cover secret squirrel; I doubt if she is currently scurrying around Baghdad, popping caps into Ba'athist activists- at most she would have been paid pin-money to eavesdrop on pissed Africans around the dinner table.

Posted by: paul bickford at October 2, 2003 at 07:45 AM

"Neo-conservatives and religious conservatives have hijacked this administration, and I consider myself on a personal mission to destroy both."

Joseph Wilson

Posted by: Texdriver at October 2, 2003 at 12:34 PM

Scooter Libby, on the other hand, is a completely sensible name.

Posted by: A_V at October 2, 2003 at 08:29 PM

I can't believe the depths of dishonesty you conservatives will go to these days. I mean, NOBODY would fuck Karl Rove.

Posted by: John Kusch at October 9, 2003 at 12:06 AM

All one really needs to know about the author's level of discourse is contained in the phrase:

"collection of c's, z's, and other letters God Almighty meant to be separated by vowels"

Posted by: perry at October 9, 2003 at 04:03 PM

Hey, perry: that was meant to be humorous. You do get humor, don't you?

Posted by: Andrea Harris at October 11, 2003 at 04:22 PM

Sure, but humor often reflects core attitudes, such as smugness. As in, this or that way of constructing language seems odd to me, so let's diss the whole thing. As opposed to having the humility to admit no one language is superior, and avoid such cheap shots altogether.

Posted by: perry at October 13, 2003 at 01:44 PM

Well, you wouldn't know anything about smugness, now would you?

By the way, nice to see that you are still boring.

Posted by: Andrea Harris at October 13, 2003 at 07:52 PM