Robert Novak’s colum…

Robert Novak’s column today is a must-read. It provides further correction of many errors the media is continuing to broadcast.

To protect my own integrity and credibility, I would like to stress three points. First, I did not receive a planned leak. Second, the CIA never warned me that the disclosure of Wilson’s wife working at the agency would endanger her or anybody else. Third, it was not much of a secret.

He also explains why he felt he needed to use her name in the story.

He [the CIA official who spoke to Novak] never suggested to me that Wilson’s wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name. I used it in the sixth paragraph of my column because it looked like the missing explanation of an otherwise incredible choice by the CIA for its mission.

It was an “incredible choice” because Wilson was “a high-ranking official in President Bill Clinton’s National Security Council” and was “a vocal opponent of President Bush’s policies in Iraq after contributing to Al Gore in the last election cycle and John Kerry in this one”.

And why kind of CIA employee is she?

A big question is her duties at Langley. I regret that I referred to her in my column as an “operative,” a word I have lavished on hack politicians for more than 40 years. While the CIA refuses to publicly define her status, the official contact says she is “covered” — working under the guise of another agency. However, an unofficial source at the Agency says she has been an analyst, not in covert operations.

But there are folks still insisting that Mrs. Wilson is undercover. Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst and counterterrorism official at the State Department, said this:

I worked with this woman. She started training with me. She has been undercover for three decades, she is not as Bob Novak suggested a CIA analyst.

Novak is suggesting nothing. He is plainly stating that the CIA told him she was not undercover. Secondly, is Mr. Johnson sure she’s undercover. A later quote:

So the fact that she’s been undercover for three decades and that has been divulged is outrageous because she was put undercover for certain reasons.

Yup, seems he’s positive. Jive that with this Washington Post story:

As the world now knows, Wilson is married to Valerie Wilson, nee Plame. She is his third wife. She is 40, slim, blonde and the mother of their 3-year-old twins. In the photos in his office, she has the looks of a film star.

The CIA is hiring 10-year-olds as covert, undercover agents?

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