Or as Oscar Wilde said:

We are all in the gutter, but Christopher Hitchens… Jesus Christ, Christopher Hitchens…

I refrain from stating the obvious about the evident soundess of Hitch’s wrist…

I came across some site that asked you to name your favorite word, but I like a lot of words and haven’t got a lot of time, so I couldn’t rattle that one off. But now that you’ve reminded me- what a sexy word. I love it so.

The administration insisted that Saddam was purchasing yellowcake uranium from Niger

Heh. When did they “insist” that he “was purchasing” anything? Try again.

nick,

in which the CIA was conspiring against Emperor George

Didn’t say that. Just said incompetent. (And I’m only talking about one particular group BTW - the group responsible for sending Wilson – not “the CIA” en masse.) The Wilson trip was not the way one would actually investigate a potential contraband transaction one was tasked with investigating. Anyone who thinks it is, is incompetent on the face of it, at best.

p.s. I’m unclear on your definition of “troll”. Seems to more or less coincide with “disagrees with me”.

It still needs some of the bugs ironing out, I see.

The administration insisted that Saddam was purchasing yellowcake uranium from Niger, and that this was part of a massive WMD program that constituted a grave danger to the U.S.

In fact, Saddam was doing no such thing (and there was no such WMD program…or even—can we say now?—WMD program related activities).

Despite your prolix derision of Joe Wilson’s investigation, on the facts, Wilson proved to be absolutely right, the Bush administration dead wrong.

It’s really pretty simple. And all your handwringing about the left and the CIA, Joe Wilson’s qualifications, the inability of the press to behave as you’d want them to without Turdblossom’s assistance, and so forth is quite beside the point.

I can’t imagine why some office-bound higher-up in a position to be Plame’s Boss and to Sign Off On Idiotic Phony Investigations For Plame’s Hubby would, simultaneously, be “covert”. (Do we even know that Plame herself was “covert”?) I suppose it’s possible, in which case I guess I’m out of luck, as it would be against the law for Rove or anyone else to grant me my wish. Sigh.

To address the actual hypothetical, I cannot envision in the first place how Rove could get himself into a position to learn who the Plame’s Boss is in our saga without simultaneously learning that the Plame’s Boss in question is covert (if he/she is). But it might be possible, in which case, from my understanding of the law making it illegal to expose covert CIA employees (an action that much of the left seems to have suddenly, recently decided they dislike – “keep all CIA officers/assets secret!”, now cries the left surreally), he’d be off the hook. Realistically I think this would have to ultimately involve someone else doing the actual Exposing (learning the name & covert nature of Plame’s Boss from Classified docs, and passing that info on..) and Rove simply hearing only the name (not the covertness) on the grapevine. So Rove’d be in the clear and the O.E. (Original Exposer) could take the heat. Blame it on a shoddily-written law, I suppose. Course, my reading could easily be wrong, IANAL.

Would I be mad just on an “ethical” level if Rove were to then say “I heard Plame’s Boss is named…”? No (see above; the person ought to be not only exposed but fired). At worst you could change “mad” to “bored” and be in the ballpark. This silliness is enough to make me miss the good ol’ days when the left hated the CIA (or anyway, didn’t pretend to love CIA), because at least that made some sense….

What do you do with a drunken sailor? What do you do with a drunken sailor? What do you do with a drunken sailor?

Give him a typewriter!

Indeed. But the lad with sound fly-fisher’s wrist href=”http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Poetry/Yeats/Why_Should_not_Old_Men_Be_Angry” rel=”nofollow”>http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Poetry/Yeats/Why_Should_not_Old_Men_Be_Angry is perhaps even more apropos.