Random Thoughts From Marybeth

A Lie Isn't the Same as a Secret

From the Duluth News Tribune: Plame's identity, if truly a secret, was thinly veiled

According to the article, anyone with a computer and an interest in her identity may have been able to figure out who she was and what she did. While I think that exposing truly covert agents should be severely punished (Aldrich Aimes, for example), I doubt that exposing Plame's identitiy fits in that category.

If simply lying to friends and neighbors about where she worked and what she did is enough to consider her "covert", then bars and nightclubs must be teeming with secret agents.

Once she was transferred to CIA headquarters it didn't matter what she said she did. Either maintaining her cover was no longer important or she (and the CIA) were inept. For the sake of our intelligence, I hope it's the former.