YOU CAN'T EVEN SAY IT WITH A STRAIGHT FACE:

A CIA Cover Blown, a White House Exposed (Tom Hamburger and Sonni Efron, August 25, 2005, LA Times)

Toward the end of a steamy summer week in 2003, reporters were peppering the White House with phone calls and e-mails, looking for someone to defend the administration's claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

About to emerge as a key critic was Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former diplomat who asserted that the administration had manipulated intelligence to justify the Iraq invasion.

At the White House, there wasn't much interest in responding to critics like Wilson that Fourth of July weekend. The communications staff faced more pressing concerns — the president's imminent trip to Africa, growing questions about the war and declining ratings in public opinion polls.

Wilson's accusations were based on an investigation he undertook for the CIA. [...]

In the days that followed, they would cast doubt on Wilson's CIA mission to Africa by suggesting to reporters that his wife was responsible for his trip. In the process, her identity as a covert CIA agent was divulged — possibly illegally.

The notion that her husband's CIA trip itself didn't end whatever remained of her covert status is ludicrous on its face.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 25, 2005 12:00 AM