THE PLAME TRUTH

Oh what a ride home from work! Listening to the talk radio wingnuts was an exercise in self-restraint as they one by one repeated the same talking points, quoted the same Weekly Standard articles and spouted the same justifications for the Plame outing.

Case in point -- Greg Knapp, of Dallas KLIF: It was the administration's "duty" to "get the truth out" about Joe Wilson's "lies." (According to Knapp, the CIA's assessment was that Saddam WAS trying to purchase yellowcake from Niger.) Valerie Plame was not really a covert agent (even if the CIA says she was) because "she hadn't been out of the country for over five years." It was important to expose Plame's "lobbying" at the CIA to get her husband sent to Niger. The CIA was "hedging," in other words covering its butt, so it could say it was right whether WMD was found or not. There is something sinister happening here, Knapp says. "You don't send an ambassador who is 100% against the president's war plans to investigate...you send an intelligence agent." "We need to know more about Valerie Plame," Greg said in somber tones.

Unlike Mark Levin and Sean Hannity, however, Knapp does think that if Rove and Libby can be proven to have lied to the grand jury and/or obstructed justice, they should be held accountable. Levin lays it all at a conspiracy of Democrats and liberals to destroy the president, destroy the administration, and defeat our troops in Iraq, starting with the "detestable, lying Joe Wilson."

Incidentally, Fitzgerald's investigation has cost American taxpayers something over $700,000. Contrast that with the $50 million spent on Ken Starr's Whitewater inquisition. AirAmerica's Majority Report suggests that that indicates that "it's a lot cheaper to expose a real crime" as compared to, say, a witchhunt.

Tags: Plame, Joe Wilson, Greg Knapp, yellowcake, Rove, Libby, Iraq, Mark Levin