Hominid Views

I’ve been in Washington, D.C. for the last couple of days. This evening, the weather sucked—cold with freezing rain and snow. So I picked up some sushi and beer and went back to my room on the eleventh floor of the Watergate Hotel to watch TV.

When I turned to C-SPAN, they were showing a re-broadcast of the day’s testimony by Valerie Plame Wilson before a house committee. Cool.

The testimony was absolutely crushing for the Bush administration—a good swift kick to the Wingnuts.

Plame made it absolutely clear (under oath) that she was a covert agent. The committee asked her question after question about the wingnut-disseminated myths. And she calmly and concisely falsified them.

No, she did not send her husband on a junket. Yes she had served overseas within five years. Yes, you can be covert and still go to CIA headquarters (as if there was any real question). No, she didn’t “out” herself before Novak did. Yes the CIA went to great lengths to protect her identity as a CIA operative. No, it wasn’t common knowledge among the socially or politically connected in Washington D.C. that she worked for the CIA. Yes, her “outing” had serious consequences for the CIA’s WMD counter-proliferation unit.

The most damaging part of it for the Bush administration was just how clear it was that Wilson’s identity was disclosed intentionally. It is exceptionally rare that a government accidentally “outs” one of its own. In this case there were multiple parallel leaks from senior Administration officials. Coordinated? Obviously so…but we’ve not yet seen the “smoking gun” memo.

Maybe it is just the karmic vibes of watching this from the Watergate Hotel, but my feeling is that this is going to hurt the administration (even more than it already has). The pettiness and vindictiveness of this administration is going to come back to bite itself in the ass.

I wonder when Bush will make good on his promise to fire anyone involved?