So how DO we know that Plame is a covert operative?

[postulater]

Did she admit it after being exposed? Did someone see her checkstub that said Pay to the Order of Secret Agent Plame?

Just having Rove or Libby say it doesn't make it so. And how would anyone prove it? Can we just call up the CIA and ask?

Maybe she is not an agent at all. Or maybe I am one too.

[shraby]

1. The CIA asked the justice department to investigate

and find out who leaked her name because she was a NOC.

[postulater]

3. Thanks, I think I might believe them on that.

After all that is her employer.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Because the CIA said so. It was the CIA that requested the investigation

in the first place BECAUSE Plame was a covert agent.

[Lerkfish]

4. just because you can grab at straws, doesn't mean they'll float you.

try again.

[obxhead]

5. The CIA wanted to know who screwed their agent.

That's why the ? even came up.

[cajones_II]

6. Don't forget that the Brass Plate was exposed as well

Her cover, a supposed oil consulting firm, Brewster Jennings, was in the mix in Saudi Arabia and allowed her to travel the circuit together with others on the WMD trail.

That all got shot to shit after 20 odd years of careful construction, not to mention any foreign gov't who wanted a lead on their own spies could just look up who wnt to say a Bahrain party attended by Plame or others from Brewster jennings.

Chances are people died over this petty BS of Bushcos, not to mention whatever they would have discovered since then.

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. Are you being sarcastic

Or just stupid?

We know she was covert because the CIA asked the Justice Department to initiate an investigation into who exposed an NOC agent. We further know because judges looking at the evidence have twice agreed that the case was serious and the evidence there to support further inquiry (and the jailing of reporters).

What is hard to understand about this? Nothing, except to the obtuse and the stupid.

[postulater]

9. Maybe a little sarcastic

Not really stupid and I don't think obtuse, alcibiades. I just didn't remember the origin of the story, so I asked a question thinking someone might help me out.

All the recent writing about Plame just starts with the fact that she is an agent.

So why do I get denigrated for asking a question? Still upset about being blamed for that Eleusinian thing?

Save your nastiness for someone else.

[Warren Stupidity]

11. It happens to be one of the Republican talking points.

We got a lot of posts in here from people who just have to bring up the latest batch of bs from the Neocon Deathcult Central Headquarters. Typically the talking point is reframed in some indirect fashion so that the poster can claim plausible deniabilty.

It is a grey area. Some posts, like yours, are probably just innocent questions - you've heard the talking point and it sounds logical and you honestly don't know the answer to the question the TP raises. Sometimes we discuss the TP in order to understand what the response and rebuttals are, in particular what actual facts are distorted by the TP and what factual arguments can be used to defeat it and how the response can be framed to be easy to understand - all good things. But lots of other posts are just in here to divert and distract and keep us putting out fires.

So - if you regurgitate rovian memes, expect to get a bit flamed.

[I Have A Dream]

10. I hope that the reason that you're being so indignant with this person...

isn't because the person asked the question but rather how it was asked. Everyone doesn't know every detail of the situation, and I'd hope that it's OK to ask without being belittled. (However, I'd have to agree with you if you were to say that the OP seemed to be doing more than just asking for information.)

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

8. The CIA was hopping mad about the exposure of a covert agent

and all the danger that entailed, to say nothing of betrayal.

And Tenet asked for the investigation.

That is how we know she was a covert agent.