September 30, 2003: Conservative Columnist Says ‘Washington Cocktail Circuit’ Knew of Plame Wilson’s CIA Employment

Conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg downplays the importance of the Valerie Plame Wilson leak investigation (see September 26, 2003), calling it a matter of little importance. Goldberg calls Plame Wilson, a covert CIA agent and senior case officer (see Fall 1992 - 1996 and April 2001 and After), a “desk jockey”; he also claims, without offering proof, that “much of the Washington cocktail circuit [already] knew” she was a CIA employee. Goldberg says the investigation is being driven by what he calls “[o]bvious Democratic opportunism and scandal-hunger,” “[m]edia opportunism as this is the first Bush ‘scandal’ that isn’t manufactured outside the White House,” and “[a] burning desire to flesh out a fleshless storyline that the Bush White House clamps down on ‘dissenters.’” [National Review, 9/30/2003]