KO weighs in on Plame's credibility

It's been awhile since Keith Olbermann has made an appearance on CMB, so this video clip is the best way to break that unintentional drought.

KO rightfully slams the right wing noisemakers who are now suggesting that Valerie Plame was an insignificant, "third rate" agent. My favorite was a simple-minded moron on Fox who hilariously suggested that Plame didn't have to leave the Central Intelligence Agency, that she could have transferred. So, where could she have gone, Human Resources? (Actually, yesterday I posted footage of this "simple-minded moron" - Republican strategist Edwina Rogers, a complete imbecile who spewed more lies during a two minute appearance on Neil Cavuto's Fox show on Friday than Richard Nixon did in a lifetime.)

Later on in this piece, Olbermann interviews Larry Johnson, a former CIA colleague of Plame's, who confirms that Plame was a covert agent. But, Johnson be damned - Brit Hume says it's untrue! Who should the American people believe - Hume, a Fox News hack, or a former CIA agent who worked with Plame?

Better yet, the current DCI, Michael V. Hayden, submitted a statement during the Scooter Libby Trial confirming the fact that Plame was a covert agent. So I guess the current director of the Central Intelligence Agency has it wrong, and Fox News has it right, right? I don't think Hollywood could come up with a more "out there" script than this.

The right's clumsy, pathetic attempts to smear Plame speaks a great deal about contemporary political discourse in America - the fact that the press will endlessly debate the meaning of "covert" and whether Plame was or wasn't, instead of focusing on the real issue here. Why is this still being discussed? It's clear she was covert, but the more time people on Fox and other networks devote to debating this already-established point, the less time people spend trying to get to the bottom of this administration's role in the outing of Plame in the first place.

One more thing people are missing. Often in political debates, I like to reverse the roles in a situation, to change the players, and reason if the outcome would be the same. Chew on this cud for second - imagine if someone in the Clinton Administration had blown the cover of a CIA agent in 1999 during the War in Kosovo. For instance, imagine a CIA agent's husband speaking out against the war. Try to go back in '99, to that politically charged, witch-hunt atmosphere. Can you even begin to imagine the outrage against Clinton if this would have happened then? It's not impossible to think that there probably would have been another impeachment trial.