CIA Agent. Fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. Apparent anti-Semite. Valerie Plame is many things.
The left-wing darling just tweeted an article accusing Jews of starting American wars. After the predictable blowback, Plame first encouraged her audience “to put aside your biases” and read the article before admitting that she “didn’t do my homework on the platform.”
An especially embarrassing gaffe for a veteran intelligence analyst, the UNZ.com article in question asserted, among other things, that Jews “own the media,” that Jewish people should wear labels while on national television, and that their beliefs are as dangerous as “a bottle of rat poison.”
One doesn’t need training in espionage though to recognize the bigotry of the piece. One also doesn’t need to be some sort of covert agent to recognize the flimsiness of her excuse.
While Plame insists that she was unfamiliar with the source of the bigoted article, a quick search shows that she frequents the website and often shares its content. Since 2014, Plame has posted nine UNZ articles including one titled “Why I Still Dislike Israel” and another about “Dancing Israelis” on 9/11.
Of course, Plame is entitled to her opinions and her excuses. Everyone else is also entitled to mercilessly mock the very people who have promoted her for so long, because her story provided something politically useful to them.
A young beltway socialite, Plame was catapulted to stardom in 2003 when her name appeared in a Washington Post column. While working as a CIA operations officer, according to conservative columnist Robert Novak, she had recommended sending her husband, a former ambassador, to investigate the production of yellowcake uranium in Niger.
The Left accused the Bush White House of outing Plame in the press as retribution for her husband’s opposition to the war. (It came out much later that Novak had actually learned about her involvement from Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.) She was cast as a victim, becoming a cause célèbre overnight. She was quoted, booked on television, and handed a book deal.
Plame’s star faded when Bush left office and she found other pursuits. Recently she was a bundler for Hillary Clinton’s ill-fated presidential campaign and launched a campaign to buy Twitter in-order to delete President Trump’s account.
That painful ordeal could’ve been avoided had the Left vetted Plame. If someone bothered to find out what she really thought, if they would’ve “done their homework,” they could’ve avoided elevating an anti-Semite.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
