Right-wing noise machine: Plame not covert
(updated below - updated again - Update III)
NBC News, yesterday:
An unclassified summary of outed CIA officer Valerie Plame's employment history at the spy agency, disclosed for the first time today in a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, indicates that Plame was "covert" when her name became public in July 2003. . . .
The employment history indicates that while she was assigned to [Directorate of Operations - Counterproliferation Division], Plame, "engaged in temporary duty travel overseas on official business." The report says, "she traveled at least seven times to more than ten times." When overseas Plame traveled undercover, "sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias -- but always using cover -- whether official or non-official (NOC) -- with no ostensible relationship to the CIA" . . . .
The unclassified summary of Plame's employment with the CIA at the time that syndicated columnist Robert Novak published her name on July 14, 2003 says, "Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employee for who the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States."
The right-wing noise machine spent the last two years repeatedly, continuously and emphatically telling their followers the exact opposite: Fred Barnes, Fox News Special Report, November 3, 2005 (via Lexis):
The CIA made such a big deal out of Valerie Plame and her name being published. She wasn't even an covert agent or anything.Fred Barnes, July 17, 2005 - Fox News roundtable (via Lexis):
Well, wait a minute, though. I mean, look, if they were really pushing this case, really trying to get her name out and discredit and disclose that she was a CIA agent, really out her -- and I don't think she was a covert agent. She worked at a desk in Langley at CIA headquarters.Mark Levin, National Review, July 18, 2005:
Despite all the hype, it appears that Plame works a desk job at the CIA. That's an admirable and important line of work. But it doesn't make her a covert operative, and it didn't make her a covert operative when Bob Novak mentioned her in his July 14, 2003, column, or the five years preceding the column's publication, during which time she hadn't served overseas as a spy, either.Washington Times Editorial, July 19, 2005:
What is known thus far suggests that . . . In July 2003, when columnist Robert Novak first mentioned in passing that Mrs. Plame worked for the CIA, she was not functioning as a covert agent and her work for the CIA was common knowledge.Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds, July 15, 2005:
Since it seems as clear as anything in this affair that Valerie Plame was not a covert agent the day before Novak's column either, I think we can chalk this up to Joe Wilson's habitual disingenuousness. . .
Nobody ever said that she wasn't working for the CIA -- the question is whether she was a covert spy or a paperpusher, and the answer seems pretty clearly to be the latter.Rich Galen, Republican strategist, CNN's Situation Room, October 6, 2005 (via Lexis):
GALEN: At the time she was not undercover. She was not a covert -- and we call them officers, not agents. . . We're arguing whether or not she was a covert agent at the time and I'm saying she was not.Alexander Haig, CNN, October 30, 2005 (via Lexis):
Now, let me tell you, he didn't lay a finger on anyone about a conspiracy associated with the war, or about an effort to get the so -- called State Department official's wife, who was really a bureaucrat and not a covert operator.John Hinderaker Powerline, November 5, 2005:
When CIA leaks hurt the administration, these papers have gleefully passed them on. It was only when Scooter Libby mentioned the name of a non-covert CIA employee, Valerie Plame, that the Post, the Times, and other MSM outlets suddenly developed a faux concern about lapses in security.Barbara Lerner, National Review, March 19, 2007:
The charge was false, and the CIA knew it was false from the get-go. Valerie Plame was their employee; they knew she was not a classified agent because she was not covert and had not worked abroad for more than five years.Robert Novak, CNN's Crossfire, September 29, 2003 (via Lexis):
According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operative, and not in charge of undercover operatives. So what is the fuss about? Pure Bush-bashing.Many people who listen to right-wing commentators such as these get their "news" about the world primarily, even exclusively, from these sources. And these sources, knowing that, routinely create their own self-affirming though wildly warped realities, in the process denying the most established facts or asserting propositions for which there is no factual basis (Fred Barnes: "The CIA made such a big deal out of Valerie Plame and her name being published. She wasn't even an covert agent or anything" -- Glenn Reynolds: "Since it seems as clear as anything in this affair that Valerie Plame was not a covert agent the day before Novak's column").
And there are countless identical statements about Plame that are not included here where the commentator confined their assertion to whether Plame was "covert" within the parameters of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Victoria Toensing, for instance, repeatedly made misleading statements insinuating that Plame was not covert -- even calling for Senate Democrats to investigate the CIA's criminal referral of the Plame disclosure -- but typically couched those claims as a statutory analysis, rather than a straight-forward claim about her employment status with the CIA.
But the above-listed right-wing pundits simply made clear, unequivocal statements about Plame's status with the CIA that were outright false. They had no basis at the time for making such statements. But, as they so often do, they made them anyway, because those statements helped to defend the Leader and bolster their political agenda. Most of all, they know that their readers will trust what they say even when those statements are demonstrably false.
That is the purpose they serve -- to say whatever needs to be said, whether true or false, to diffuse concern among their followers that the Leader has engaged in any real wrongdoing. That is why Tim at Balloon-Juice -- who last night said: "I could entertain myself for hours looking up the hair-singingly civil manner that countless conservative blogs attacked the idea that Valerie Plame was a covert agent. If one in twenty corrects their error you can color me shocked" -- can rest easy. No shock is forthcoming. These falsehoods are never acknowledged, let alone retracted, because they are a critical part of the role they play. UPDATE: This morning, I read through roughly 50 or so (at least) panel discussions and "news" items from Fox News over the last couple of years on the Plame matter. If Fox were your principal source of news, you would believe that the proposition that Valerie Plame was not considered "covert" by the CIA was a fact so established that nobody really questioned it:
Fox "moderate" Mort Kondracke, Special Report with Brit Hume, September 1, 2006 (via Lexis):
I don't think we know that Karl Rove knew and I assume that Scooter Libby may have known but he may have -- you know, she was not a covert officer, she was not a covert agent, and she was not covered by the intelligence agent's identities act. So, all of that is beside the point.Laura Ingraham, Hannity & Colmes, March 7, 2007:
This is bizarre that this case would have gone this far when they knew who leaked this information, and they knew that this was not a situation where Valerie Plame, at this point in time, at least, was a covert agent.

In February of this year, Tony Snow chatted with Bill O'Reilly and said this (h/t Zack):
Very quickly -- very quickly, you got this Valerie Plame case. Now, it turns out that [special counsel] Peter (sic: Patrick) Fitzgerald doesn't -- can't even identify any harm. She wasn't a covert agent. She wasn't compromised. . . She wasn't covert anymore.Are there any consequences at all for the White House Press Secretary to tell outright lies like that? Does that prompt any media scandals? Why can Tony Snow say with impunity that Plame "wasn't a covert agent" when their own CIA confirms that she was? Really, how can that be allowed?