Plame Hall of Shame

THE Valerie Plame affair should not be allowed to recede into memory without an “accountability moment” for the journalists and commentators who bought former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s (now thoroughly discredited) conspiracy theories and sold them to the public as fact.

On July 14, 2003, columnist Robert Novak wrote that “two senior administration officials” told him that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was the CIA officer who recommended that Wilson go to Niger to investigate Saddam Hussein’s reported attempts to purchase uranium there. Shortly thereafter, Wilson-who had accused the White House of “twisting” his Niger report-started working with The Nation magazine’s David Corn to promulgate the theory that the Bush White House had “outed” his “covert” wife in an attempt “to punish Wilson or to send a message to others who might challenge it” (as Corn wrote two days after the appearance of Novak’s column).

About the Author

Stephen Spruiell

Stephen Spruiell is a former staff reporter for National Review Online.

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THE Valerie Plame affair should not be allowed to recede into memory without an “accountability moment” for the journalists and commentators who bought former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s (now thoroughly discredited) conspiracy theories and sold them to the public as fact.

On July 14, 2003, columnist Robert Novak wrote that “two senior administration officials” told him that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was the CIA officer who recommended that Wilson go to Niger to investigate Saddam Hussein’s reported attempts to purchase uranium there. Shortly thereafter, Wilson-who had accused the White House of “twisting” his Niger report-started working with The Nation magazine’s David Corn to promulgate the theory that the Bush White House had “outed” his “covert” wife in an attempt “to punish Wilson or to send a message to others who might challenge it” (as Corn wrote two days after the appearance of Novak’s column).