Jonah –

Christopher Wolf, Wilson’s lawyer, also says:

Obviously, the identification of Valerie meant an end to her decades-long career. It also meant the country had lost an essential part of the services provided by someone who was an expert on weapons of mass destruction.”

How so? It seems certain that she had been working for at lest the last few years as an analyst at CIA HQ in Langley. Why in the world could she not continue to do that? And if the CIA wanted to again send her abroad with a false identity, the only thing likely to compromise her would be the fact that her photographs had been published in Vanity Fair. And she willingly posed for those.

The lawyer makes plenty of other claims that aren’t true. For example, he fails to note that British intelligence continues to maintain that Saddam Hussein did indeed seek uranium in Africa. Wilson’s own reporting on an Iraqi “trade mission” inadvertently added credence to that theory at CIA HQ.

Wolf claims: “We also now know that the only reason Valerie Wilson was mentioned was because, as Time magazine put it, the administration had declared ‘war on Wilson’ for his whistle-blowing.” We “know” no such thing. That is Wilson’s allegation which the Nation’s David Corn was kind enough to put into print for him and which much of the MSM has dutifully echoed.

Wolf adds for good measure: “The outing of Valerie seemed intended to send a not-so-subtle message to other potential critics, ‘Mess with us, and we’ll mess with your family.’” Now, call me naïve but I don’t believe there are many politicians – Republican or Democrat – who are quite that close to Tony Soprano in their thinking. I do understand why some extreme partisans might want people to believe that about Karl Rove and the Bush White House.

Wolf then again denies that Plame was instrumental in getting Wilson the Africa assignment, neglecting to mention that a bipartisan Senate committee found otherwise, that the panel even found emails proving Wilson lied about this. (Aren’t editors supposed to ask op-ed writers about such obvious discrepancies?)

And BTW, anyone curious how an ex-ambassador to Gabon earned enough to live in Georgetown with a view of the Capitol? How many other former ambassadors to Africa are doing so well? One would think some of those tough-minded MSM reporters interviewing Joe Wilson might at least ask him such questions. One would be wrong.