Valerie, Joe, and Scooter

Poor Valerie Plame. She's been through so much.

Maybe her $2.5 million book deal will help ease the pain.

From the New York Times:

Valerie Plame Wilson, the Central Intelligence Agency covert officer whose name was publicly disclosed three years ago, has agreed to sell her memoir for a little more than $2.5 million, according to people involved in the bidding process for the book.

The book, whose working title is "Fair Game," is scheduled to be published in the fall of 2007 by Crown Publishing, an imprint of Random House. Steve Ross, senior vice president and publisher of Crown, said the book would be Ms. Wilson's "first airing of her actual role in the American intelligence community, as well as the prominence of her role in the lead-up to the war."

Ms. Wilson, he added, "has been this mysterious woman at the very eye of a major storm and the concentric circles keep widening."

...[Mr. Ross] said Ms. Wilson submitted a detailed 50-page proposal with outlines and sample material for each chapter. "We were all astonished at the richness of her story telling," he said. Rick Horgan, vice president and executive editor at Crown, will edit Ms. Wilson's book.

What's astonishing is not the "richness of her story telling," but the fact that Plame is getting $2.5 million to tell her story.

She and her lying husband Joe Wilson have milked this thing for much more than it's worth.

I wonder where her book will appear, on the fiction or the non-fiction list?

Unbelievable.

Oh, and regarding the first paragraph of the Times' article, in case you didn't know, PLAME WAS NO LONGER A COVERT AGENT.

This drives me nuts.

From July 15, 2005, FOX News:

According to the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act a crime has been committed only if someone knowingly reveals an undercover agent. Only one person has ever been convicted of violating the act.

In [Joe] Wilson's book, "The Politics of Truth," he writes that he and his future wife both returned from overseas assignments in June 1997. Wilson wrote neither he nor his wife were stationed outside the United States after that posting.

Six years later, in July 2003, Plame's name was revealed by columnist Robert Novak.

The column's date is vital because the federal intelligence i.d. law says a "covert agent" must have been on an overseas assignment "within the last five years." Plus, the assignment must be long-term and not a short trip or temporary post.

Victoria Toensing, former counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee who helped write the law protecting the identities of intelligence agents, told FOX News on Thursday that "no, in a nutshell," Rove did not commit a crime. Plame's status at the time of the revelation is key to that conclusion, she said.

"That's a very big question," Toensing said, referring to exactly what status Plame had within the CIA at the time of the alleged "leak." "When did she leave her foreign assignment?"

If it was in 1997, as noted in Wilson's book, Toensing said, "she would not have even have to come to the definition of a 'covert agent' under the law how we wrote it."

Obviously, the most that zealous Patrick Fitzgerald could come up with after his lengthy investigation was the indictment of Scooter Libby, not for disclosing a covert CIA agent's identity, but for allegedly lying and obstructing justice during his testimony.

That's it. That's all.

Nonethless, Plame and shyster Wilson are making a load of money off of this.

Byron York offers a related bit of news:

This afternoon CNN reported the news, published earlier in The Corner, that Lewis Libby's defense lawyers say they will produce five witnesses who will testify under oath that former ambassador Joseph Wilson told them that his wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, worked for the CIA, a job status that, allegedly, was classified. CNN also reported a response from Joseph Wilson:

BLITZER: And John, producer, Stephanie Katube (sp), just got a statement from Ambassador Joe Wilson. Let me read it to you and to our viewers. "The last I heard," Wilson says, "this is case is about allegations Mr. Libby lied, perjured himself before the FBI, special prosecutor and grand jury and obstructed justice. None of those charges of which he's been indicted has anything to do with me."

Wilson goes on to say, "Furthermore, the government in the person of the special prosecutor in his court filings has made it clear it believes several White House officials were engaged in a campaign to, quote, 'discredit, punish and seek revenge' on me. It would appear that campaign is ongoing."

What seems notable about Wilson's statement, if CNN read it in full, is that it does not address the issue of whether or not he told people that his wife worked for the CIA.

Five witnesses are going to testify that Wilson told them that his wife worked for the CIA.

That could throw a wrench into Plame's "rich story telling."

I'm sure Plame and Wilson don't care as long as the $2.5 million check clears.