Of all people, Wolf Blitzer explained just exactly what the Bush White House did by outing Valerie Plame:
COLLINS: And remind me, Wolf, there was also quite a bit of discussion about whether or not her identity was very well known in the circles of Washington, D.C., and the level of covertness that she held.Go Wolf.
BLITZER: I can speak as a reporter here in Washington for 30 years. I did not know that Valerie Plame-Wilson was a covert officer. I didn't even know that Joe Wilson was married at the time.
I'm not sure it was all that widely known what she did, what she didn't do. The fact of the matter is, she had been what they call a knock.
She was not working undercover as a U.S. espionage officer, a CIA clandestine officer working overseas. The CIA had, years earlier, established fake businesses, fake companies for her to go out and recruit spies, foreigners who would help the United States in various capacities. And as a result, she was not working at a U.S. embassy pretending to be a scientific attache or a cultural attache or something else.
COLLINS: Right.
BLITZER: She was out there on her own, working as a clandestine officer, pretending to be an energy consultant, a private citizen, when, in fact, she was an employee of the U.S. government. She was a clandestine officer working for the CIA.
COLLINS: OK.
BLITZER: And that's very dangerous work. And to release that kind of information obviously not only can compromise her, but can compromise a lot of people who might be working and cooperating with the CIA.
Releasing that kind of information compromised the national security of our country. The Bush White House chose politics over the safety of Americans.
