It is common among bloggers to criticize prominent members of the mainstream media, and I periodically have joined in that. so it's only fair for me to acknowledge instances in which two television journalists have done something admirable.

The recent Democratic Presidential debate at Dartmouth College was hosted in part by Tim Russert, Washington bureau chief of NBC News, who performed superbly, asking good questions and often following up on them with the candidates. And today, October 25, Wolf Blitzer, host of the Situation Room on CNN, made a laudable remark to Valerie Plame Wilson.

Mrs. Wilson, as you all know, was a covert CIA agent, whose husband, career diplomat Joseph Wilson, ran afoul of the Bush Administration for reporting that he had found no evidence during his trip in February, 2002 to Niger that Sadaam Hussein's Iraq had tried to purchase uranium "yellowcake" from the African nation. In his February, 2003 State of the Union message, President Bush infamously proclaimed "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Six months later in his New York Times op-ed piece, "What I Didn't Find in Africa," Wilson wrote "I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."

Soon afterward, after speaking to Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, syndicated columnist Robert Novak revealed Joseph Wilson's "wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." Hence, Mr. Novak had "outed" Mrs. Wilson by revealing her status as a (covert) CIA agent. Karl Rove, Presidential Press Secretary Ari Fleisher, and the Vice-President's Chief of State, I. Lewis ("Scooter") Libby also revealed to reporters Ms. Plame's employment status, though classified information.

And now we know positively what the right wing had been vigorously denying for four years- that Valerie Plame was in fact "covert." Note this from the action brought against the government by Plame and her publisher, Simon & Shuster, in the United States District Court, Southern District Court of New York State:


Further, in connection with Mr. Libby’s sentencing, the CIA confirmed that at the time of the leak, Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employee for whom the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States. As acknowledged by the government in connection with the sentencing phase of the criminal prosecution of I. Lewis Libby, in January 2002, Ms. Wilson was a CIA operations officer, assigned to the Counter Proliferation Division (“CPD”) at CIA Headquarters. In that capacity, she served as the chief of a CPD component with responsibility for weapons proliferation issues related to Iraq. Over the years, on numerous occasions Ms. Wilson traveled overseas, always under a cover identity, using an official or non-official cover, with no ostensible relationship to the CIA.


Valerie Plame was a covert CIA officer investigating the possible linkage between Saddam Hussein's government and "weapons of mass destruction," a major rationale for the war launched by President Bush. Her cover was blown by an Administration apparently unconcerned about the damage to the critical intelligence operation she was carrying out on behalf of that government and the American people. And so at the close of today's interview with Plame, Wolf Blitzer boldly uttered those words otherwise now so commonly, and appropriately, addressed to members of the Armed Services:

"Let me thank you on behalf of a lot of our viewers for your service to our country."