The Republican defense of the day..

[Rex_Goodheart]

is that Plame was not covert because she had been in the country since 1997... and that the definition of "covert" applies only to the most recent 5 years...

US Code TITLE 50 > CHAPTER 15 > SUBCHAPTER IV > § 426

(4) The term “covert agent” means—
(A) a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency—
(i) whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and
(ii) who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States; or
(B) a United States citizen whose intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information, and—
(i) who resides and acts outside the United States as an agent of, or informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency, or
(ii) who is at the time of the disclosure acting as an agent of, or informant to, the foreign counterintelligence or foreign counterterrorism components of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; or
(C) an individual, other than a United States citizen, whose past or present intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information and who is a present or former agent of, or a present or former informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency.

[skids]

1. debunked here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4098464

[ncteechur]

2. I think the CIA gets to decide who is covert and they have said

that she was!!

Rove outed a covert agent--he broke the law--plus although this is not a reason to send him to jail, he is a big steamy piece of SHIT!

[LittleClarkie]

3. Um, yeah, she had more than one identity

The soccer mom one, and the covert agent one. What do they think, you can only be one or the other for years at a time. No, she's go off on little trips, and the neighbors were none the wiser.