A Definitive Take on the Plame Affair . . .

. . . will not be found on this blog. I don’t know whether Valerie Plame was a covert CIA operative when Robert Novak revealed her identity in 2003.

I don’t know why the CIA though it was a good idea to send her WASP husband – a former ambassador to Gabon and acting ambassador to Iraq prior to the first Gulf War – to Niger to try and confirm reports that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium for his nuclear program. (But if Nick and Nora Charles are the CIA’s template for secret agents, it explains a lot about the quality of their intelligence in recent years.)

I don’t know if Bush administration officials leaked her identity, or were merely trying to discredit her husband’s criticisms of the Iraq War and blowing her “cover” her was unintentional.

All I can say for sure at this point is that anybody who puts out a book with this cover is someone whose conceit is beyond satire.