60 minutes of fame

Last night, 60 minutes' Katie Couric did a puff piece about the Valarie Plame affair. Needless to say, it was very biased. Without looking at the transcript, here is what stuck out to me:

The good:

• Couric brought up the Vanity Fair picture and story, which shows Plame wasn't too concerned about her "cover" and shows that she was, instead enjoying some celebrity status for her husband's op-ed.
• Couric asked Plame if it ever crossed her mind that someone would wonder, "how did Joe Wilson get this job?" and that that question would eventually lead back to Plame, revealing that she worked at the CIA.
• Wilson made a brief appearance. He was obstinate and angry. Couric noticed. He looked bad, even in this sympathetic portrayal.

The bad:

• Couric repeatedly refers to Plame as an "undercover spy." But it is almost certain Plame was not covert as defined under the intelligence identities protection act. Couric alluded to the fact that some had questioned her status, but never delved into, let alone framed the legal issue. No crime was committed unless Plame was covert as defined by the law.
  
• Couric never explained that Fitzgerald never indicted anyone for breaking the law, only for lying to investigators. Thus it seems the IIPA was never violated.
• Couric never mentioned that Victoria Toensing, one of the authors of the IIPA has said in public that Plame was definitely not a covert as defined by the statute.
  
• Couric never brought up the fact that Wilson was on John Kerry's policy team before he wrote the op-ed, showing that he was a openly partisan before Plame was "outed." It also is important to understand that Wilson was openly partisan because it caused many, including Novak, to wonder why he of all people was chosen for the mission.
  
• Couric specifically said that the 16 word used in the state of the union address-- which said that recent intelligence from Britain indicates that Saddam sought uranium in Africa-- were based upon a forged the memo traced to Italian sources. (She never mentions that the memo was from Italy.) To the contrary, the 16 words were based on British intelligence. She also never mentions that British intelligence did a review of the uranium claim in the Butler report and concluded that the allegation that Saddam tried to buy uranium was well founded. This is a HUGE Mistake oft repeated in the media.
• Couric never pointed out that Wilson actually confirmed the 16 words. After his trip, Wilson reported to a house committee (I believe the intelligence committee) about his findings. In his testimony he said that he spoke with the former Nigerian Official (I believe he was prime minister) who said that an envoy from Iraq had been to Nigeria. the official told Wilson the envoy had subtly tried to establish a relationship to buy uranium.
• Couric never showed that Wilson's op-ed addressed the question, "Did Saddam buy Uranium?" istead of what Bush said: that Saddam"sought" uranium. Thus Wilson's claims in the New York Times didn't even address the 16 words.
  
• Couric failed to press Plame on who suggested her husband for the job if not her? Plame says one of her subordinates suggested her husband, Wilson to Plame, and that, after this suggestion, she wrote the memo proposing the CIA send her husband to Niger. Unfortunately she can't quite seem to remember who it was, nor does it appear that she ever asked around to try and find out. Furthermore, this story about the subordinate suggesting Wilson for the job was never told to the investigator who initially came to the CIA investigating the leak, nor was it told to Congress the first time she testified under oath. The mysterious subordinate story surfaced for the first time that I am aware of, when she testified before John Conyer's congressional committee (the second time).
• Couric never mentioned any of the other material available identifying Plame before the Novak piece, including the "Who's Who" entry, the entry on Wilson's website and, I believe, Wilson's own book.
• Couric never explains that the "leak to get even with Wilson for criticizing the war" storyline is severely undermined because the Novak leaker was Richard Armitage--a war critic himself.