Such careful writing, for a change. But what he writes about is hilarious:
So far Karl Rove appears guilty of telling reporters something he had heard, that Valerie Wilson, the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, worked for the C.I.A. But because of several exceptions in the 1982 law forbidding disclosure of a covert operative's identity, virtually no one thinks anymore that he violated it. The law doesn't seem to apply to Ms. Wilson because she apparently hadn't been posted abroad during the five previous years.
The endangered spies Ms. Wilson was compared to James Bond in the early days of the scandal, but it turns out she had been working for years at C.I.A. headquarters, not exactly a deep-cover position. Since being outed, she's hardly been acting like a spy who's worried that her former contacts are in danger.
At the time her name was printed, her face was still not that familiar even to most Washington veterans, but that soon changed. When her husband received a "truth-telling" award at a Nation magazine luncheon, he wept as he told of his sorrow at his wife's loss of anonymity. Then he introduced her to the crowd.
And then, for any enemy agents who missed seeing her face at the luncheon but had an Internet connection, she posed with her husband for a photograph in Vanity Fair.
Here is the picture, by the way:
Tierney believes that it doesn't matter if some covert agent is outed, as long as the letter of the law may not have been violated, as long as she doesn't really look terribly covert to him and so on. Everything that the administration has done is small fry stuff, not important, not to worry about. Nothing here matters. Look over there!
And what do we see over there? We see Tierney write about the behavior of Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson after the revelation of her identity. After the revelation. Now, this is important to consider! We should always consider the behavior of suspected crime victims after the deed has been done! Yes, that is where truth will be found. And how dare Wilson pose for a photograph with his wife! Without this picture nobody could ever have figured out what she looks like. We only knew her identity and where she lived and stuff...
Blame the victim, please! The only allowed victims in this country are conservative Christians and the current administration. Everyone else is "fair game" as Rove said.