The Plame NAME is not the issue

Valerie Plame explains the issue, for all the semantically and intellectually challenged wingnuts who seem to think that as long as her next-door neighbors knew her name, everything else was fair game:

"I and my former colleagues trusted the government to protect us in our jobs."

Wingnuts have tried to insinuate that Valerie Plame Wilson had an obligation to live her entire life behind closed doors because of what she did for a living; and that the fact that ANYONE knew her name made her fair game for what the Bushistas did. But they miss the point: she was SUPPOSED to appear to have a normal life and a normal job, as an energy analyst for a front company called Brewster-Jennings. That's the POINT of a CIA front company.

Did anyone see Valerie Plame Wilson, outside of Washington circles, before the Bush Administration and Bob Novak decided that getting revenge against her husband because said husband dared to tell the truth about Iraq and yellowcake uranium from Niger? Hardly. And yet the wingnuts will tell you that she's a self-promoter because she appears in public and is now known to be a former CIA NOC -- BECAUSE THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION MADE SURE EVERYONE KNEW. They say she has no right to privacy because she dares to appear at Washington events when everyone knows who she is -- BECAUSE THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION MADE SURE EVERYONE KNEW.

It's hilarious to watch so-called conservatives, hawks, people who profess to have our national security interests at heart, defend what was done to our intelligence apparatus for cheap petty revenge by the people who are supposed to be keeping this country safe. Out there in the topsy-turvy world that is Outer Wingnuttia, national security is enhanced by sending other people's kids to die by invading a country who did nothing to us, but blowing the cover of someone who was monitoring nuclear material into Iran is somehow patriotic.

The ferocity of the vitriol directed against this couple by the frothing mouth-breathers on the right is fascinating to watch, and I suspect it goes far beyond simple Bush-worship. The Wilsons are nothing if not glamorous -- a real life Mr. Steed and Mrs. Peel but who happen to be married to each other. They are smart, good-looking, with interesting jobs, interesting lives, and what appears at least to be a very real devotion to each other. They are a committed couple with young children who ought to be poster children for family values -- and instead they are reviled by those on the right who only WISH they had the looks, brains, poise, and commitment to this country that the Wilsons have.

I have no delusions that the Wilsons are going to find justice, nor are they likely to even be successful in embarrassing the Three Stooges of the Apocalypse, given the inevitability of claims of executive privilege due to national security concerns. But if the right thinks they're dealing with mushy Democrats with these two, they'd better guess again.