For years now, Valerie Plame has been the toast of the liberal glitterati, a celebrated combat specialist against the Vast Bush Conspiracy. Every move the former CIA employee has made has oozed political and commercial calculation. She struck a book deal with Simon & Schuster worth more than $2 million. She struck a movie deal based on the book deal with Warner Brothers for millions more, so she can be played as a patriotic heroine on the silver screen by Nicole Kidman or Naomi Watts. How many millions more? Two million? Five million? Don’t wait for the media to ask. They're too busy playing her as victimized.
In the Clinton years, any opponent in a Clinton scandal was assumed to be overwhelmed with greed, desperate to get an agent and make millions with lies about the president, to sell "trash for cash." Since she's been encouraged to wage political war by Hillary Clinton, none of these assumptions have been applied to Valerie Plame, or her husband, Joe Wilson. Here’s a rundown of the Plame interviews and the number of questions about the Wilsons making millions:
60 Minutes, CBS: Zero.
Today, NBC: Zero.
Larry King Live, CNN: Zero.
All Things Considered, NPR: Zero.
Fresh Air with Terry Gross, NPR: Zero.
Countdown with Keith Olbermann, MSNBC: Zero.
Hardball, MSNBC: Zero.
The Situation Room, CNN: Zero.
They can laugh all the way to the bank. The network interviewers were breathless at the chance to speak with Valerie Plame as her book tour began, eager to air her tale of how she was viciously victimized by Karl Rove and his henchmen. The first words CBS "60 Minutes" aired out of her mouth were "finally I get to set the record straight."
CBS wants you to assume she's obviously the one who talks straight, and not her opponents. This would also assume that these networks haven’t been her promoters and publicists over the last four years. How would she be worth four or eight or ten million dollars without all their breathless odes?
