I don't think anyone out there wants to see our CIA operatives exposed and put in harms way, but leave it to Faux "news" to immediately use a mistake by the Obama administration to attempt to absolve the Bush administration for intentionally leaking Valerie Plame's identity for malicious political purposes.
Fox News Uses White House Oversight To Absolve Bush Administration For Valerie Plame Leak:
Fox News exploited the Obama administration's accidental exposure of a CIA operative's identity, using it as an opportunity to minimize the Bush administration's culpability in deliberately exposing former CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity as political retribution in 2003.
On May 26, the Washington Post reported that the White House press office had mistakenly revealed the name of the CIA Chief of Station in Afghanistan when it distributed a list of officials scheduled to participate in a military briefing with Obama at the Bagram Air Base during the president's surprise Memorial Day visit to Afghanistan. The list had been provided to the administration communications staff by military officials.
Fox News used the oversight as an opportunity to absolve the Bush administration and former Bush advisor Lewis "Scooter" Libby for deliberately exposing the identity of then-covert CIA operative Valerie Plame in 2003.
As they noted, it started on Fox & Friends this Tuesday, and then the viewers were treated to the bit above on America's Newsroom.
Later on America's Newsroom, Fox contributor and former Bush administration official John Bolton made the specious claim that Plame's identity was "made public by Rich Armitage, Secretary Colin Powell's deputy," and argued that the disclosure "resulted in some very unfair treatment of a lot of other people in the Bush administration like Scooter Libby." Bolton argued that the Plame disclosure was "just a malicious piece of gossip," while the Obama administration's disclosure was "utter incompetence."
These cases are not comparable. While the Obama administration's release of the CIA Chief of Station's name is a serious oversight, reports of the incident are clear that the disclosure was accidental. As the Washington Post noted, the mistake was immediately recognized and the list was withdrawn. Read on...
At least they took a break from their Fake Benghazi Outrage to scream about something else for a few minutes. Expect them to keep pounding the table on this one for a while. Plame herself acknowledged the difference between the two events on Twitter, but don't expect that to make a difference to any of the talking heads on Fox.
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