Okay, Wake Up and Smell the Treason!

The right-wing punditocracy still doesn't get it. Valerie Plame was a covert agent of the Central Intelligence Agency. Period. All of their conspiracy theorizing, backpedalling, and whining isn't going to change that.

The stupidest part is their complete inability to understand why, after having a covert operative's name publicized, the CIA didn't simply come forward with the full and unvarnished truth. So, let me explain this like they're children.

The CIA is a big agency that keeps lots of secrets. You know what secrets are, don't you? Of course, you do. Anyway, even if part of the secret gets told, the CIA doesn't like to tell the rest of the secret. Because you see, boys and girls, if the CIA tells the rest of the secret, people die. So, the CIA was all like, "Nope. Don't know whatcha talkin' about. I ain't seen no covert agent. What's covert mean, anyway?"

Then, they went around and did what grown-ups call "damage control." This is what grown-ups do when bad people leak the name of a top-secret spy. Once the CIA was sure that they could tell the truth without people dying and a whole lot of other secrets coming out and more people dying, they told the part of the truth that they can tell: Valerie Plame was a covert agent working for the CIA, often travelling under a false identity (kind of like Halloween, where you dressed up like Superman).

Of course, Valerie Plame can't work as a top-secret spy anymore, so she lost her job and the CIA lost a good officer. We may never know how much of a boo-boo this has been for the CIA and the country. The CIA keeps secrets, remember? But you can bet that the bad guys who told the secret damaged national security and helped those other bad guys who want to kill us all. That, boys and girls, is called treason.

UPDATE: Read the unclassified proof of Valerie Plame's covert status.