Valerie Plame was covert

Looks like those on the right who've been defending the Bush administration against claims that they outted a covert CIA agent no longer have a leg to stand on. There's a current article in newsweek that claims Valerie Plame was classified as covert:

Newly released court papers could put holes in the defense of Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, in the Valerie Plame leak case. Lawyers for Libby, and White House allies, have repeatedly questioned whether Plame, the wife of White House critic Joe Wilson, really had covert status when she was outed to the media in July 2003. But special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald found that Plame had indeed done "covert work overseas" on counterproliferation matters in the past five years, and the CIA "was making specific efforts to conceal" her identity, according to newly released portions of a judge's opinion.

The hypocrisy of this administration knows no bounds. Remember that they're going after the whistleblower in the NSA who leaked the fact that they were eavesdropping on american citizens without warrants by saying he jeapordized national security. It seems to me that a lot more damage was done by leaking the identity of a covert agent which put the lives of other agents who worked with Plame in danger. Al Qaeda knows their calls are monitored, they'd be stupid not to and we all know they're not stupid. The NSA whistleblower did the right thing by notifying the press that our government was breaking the law. Oh how the wingnuts on Free Republic loved to use the arguement that Valerie Plame wasn't covert at the time of her outting. Things are starting to get interesting.