What does this administration have to do to get the Brits to sever ties to us? IIRC, in a conversation on Lex’s site I once asked, “Is it treason when you betray an ally?”
Wasn’t the whole Valery Plame affair about blowing the cover of a CIA operative who wasn’t under cover?
If I were the PM I’d have the US Ambassador on a plane home right about now and the Queen would be making a “It’s been nice knowing you but goodbye! speech.
One thing’s for certain, the CIA is going to get a lot less information out of Britain. At least until President Romney heads over to London for his apology tour.
Good job, President Shortbus.
Valerie Plame was *not* a field agent [I have this on the word of a person who knows the difference between an office worker and a field agent] She was an office worker at the CIA offices in Langley, like the more than a thousand others. The last time I searched, Langley has more than 100,000 employees. Tell me how the identities of more than 100,000 folks can be kept secret from the rest of us citizens. Plame’s much touted kerfuffle about being “outed” was primarily a way of raising money. When field agents return from the field, as she did, their identities are protected for a certain length of time [I believe it's six years] and then they revert to being office workers at Langley just as you and I have been office workers at one job or another. It stands to reason that preserving secrecy about all those folks, including secretaries, janitorial staff etc. would be prohibitively expensive. She and her husband sold the producers in Hollywood a bill of goods about what a good movie subject she’d make. So far, no movie. We’re all pretty much sick of her. Vanity Fair, the glossy magazine, did a story on her non-story and then she sank into obscurity.
Marianne
I think the Brits are hoping that “this, too, shall pass”
Close to what I was going to say, Bill. My take is that the Brits (and their queen) take a longer view of things.
That’s not to say they won’t be keeping their cards closer to their chest; at least until February.