The overlying importance of this whole Plamegate scandal is that it perfectly illustrates how far the Republicans will go to destroy a true American hero. We saw it when they invented a group of phony Veterans known as "The Swift Boat Liars" to besmirch the heroism of Sen. John Kerry, a thrice-wounded Vietnam vet with eight Purple Hearts, 17 Medals of Honor, and a Cap'n Crunch Super Sailor Badge with clusters. We saw it when they smeared the reputation of Scott Ritter, a Green Beret who disguised himself as a middle-aged pervert in order to expose the seedy underworld of internet pedophiles. We saw it when the right-wing controlled media made a laughing stock of the courageous Sandy Berger, a man who risked severe paper cuts to his genitals in order to illustrate how badly security at the National Archives has deteriorated on Bush's watch. And now, the Repugs have shown their true colors once again by blowing the cover of super-duper top secret undercover CIA agent and American Hero, Valerie Plame. Her crime? Telling the truth about Bush's lies.
The inspiration for six Ian Fleming novels and the hit TV series, Alias, Plame's 35-year career as a super-duper top secret agent was what legends were made of. From her base of operations, Codename: Cubicle, Agent Plame spearheaded such major CIA operations as Project Fetch Director Woolsey a Cup Of Coffee and Operation Who Stole a Box of Staples from the Supply Room? In 1996, she singlehandedly thwarted a major terrorist attack by remaining motionless at her desk for several months while slowly tripling the size of her ass. Along with John Deutch and Aldrich Ames, Valerie Plame is one of the few CIA spooks who has earned the admiration and respect of progressives everywhere.
While some repugs are quick to shrug her off as a "pencil pusher" or a "cubicly monkey", the frontline of the War on Terror ran right across Agent Plame's desk. When she pushed her seemingly nondescript pencil, nations burned. Empires rose and fell at the flick of her super-duper top secret wrist. So when the Agency ordered her to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein had tried to obtain yellowcake uranium from Niger, she devised a cunning plan to assign the most unqualified, inexperienced boob with zero credentials to the task. It would be the exact opposite of what the Nigerites expected.
After hours of painstaking research, she whittled the list of candidates down to two potentials. Big Bird from Sesame Street refused the assignment, so she placed a call to Mr. Joseph Wilson, Codename: Shmoopsie, - former Ambassador to Lower Slobovia and, by pure coincidence, her husband.
Shmoopsie was incredibly busy helping democrats defeat Bush in the 2004 election, but when Agent Plame, Codename: Mumsy-Wumsy explained the mission to him, he turned his yacht around and headed for Nigeria at once. It was a daunting task, requiring long hours in a third world country with shitty golf courses, but he would do it for Mumsy-Wumsy. He would do it for the country he loved. And he would do it for America, too.
After spending several grueling hours sipping dreadful martinis at the Lagos Hilton, Shmoopsie made two very shocking discoveries:
1. For a nation full of Black people, it was next to impossible to get a decent shoe shine in Nigeria, and
2. Nigerian leaders vehemently denied selling yellow cake, or any other form of tasty dessert to Saddam Hussein.
Alas, Bush's entire reason for invading Iraq was a farce.
Upon reading Shmoopsie's super-duper top secret CIA report, Codename: An Article in the New York Times, Agent Plame proceeded to the office of Director George Tenet, carrying a cup of coffee to confuse snipers, ward off ninjas, and cloak her from Soviet spy satellites. Director Tenet was not only unimpressed by the Jennifer Garner pouty-face Agent Plame had spent months perfecting, but complained that she put too much cream in the coffee. Devastated, she returned to her Base of Operations, but vowed to continue working behind the scenes to expose Bush for the lying liar he is.
When she found out days later that Robert Novak had blown her cover, she immediately suspected that Rove was behind it. Aside from her husband, the Agency, the barista at the Langley Starbuck's, the entire cast of Cats, most of Washington D.C., and that guy who printed the "Kiss Me, I'm Married to a CIA Operative" T-shirt she gave to Shmoopsie for their anniversary, Rove was the only person who knew of her super-duper top secret identity. Obviously, this was his revenge for Shmoopsie's completely impartial criticism of Bush's illegal and immoral war in Iraq. Sleazy tactics indeed, but business as usual for the Bush junta. They ruined Wen Ho Lee, and now they had ruined her.
In the twelve months since Rove destroyed Agent Plame's career, Mumsy-Wumsy and Shmoopsie have suffered an endless nightmare of TV appearances, speaking engagments, magazine spreads, and lucrative book deals. Karl "The NARCitect" Rove's immediate termination will go a long way to repay these modern day Rosenbergs for the unjustice done to them, but it will never repair the damage they've inflicted on the War on Terror, a federal jobs program soon to be helmed by President Hillary Clinton. What Rove did amounts to treason, and not the noble kind of treason where you sell out your country or side with the enemy. Nothing short of his prosecution and incarceration will get us back on the Roadmap to Winning the Peace.
