Valerie's problem is her decency and humanity. She has reasons most Americans don't know to be really angry with George Bush and George Tenet but she has contained her rage. In a new tasty nugget in her book, Fair Game, she gives some details on the 2004 Al Qaeda threat to kill her. The response of the Administration, or more accurately, the lack of any response, is enough to make the Pope curse. What the Bush Administration failed to do and what George Tenet, CIA Director, failed to do, goes beyond cowardice.

What am I talking about? In 2004 the FBI received intelligence that Al Qaeda hit teams were enroute to the United States to kill Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Valerie Plame. The FBI informed Valerie of this threat. This was just more "good" news piled on the fact that her intelligence career was in shambles, that intelligence assets she had recruited/managed were destroyed, and that she was unable to rebut publicly false and malicious smears of her character and reputation by a bunch of partisan Republican hacks. As the mother of two pre-school children, her first thoughts were about protecting her kids. She took the threat seriously and asked for help.

When the White House learned of these threats they sprung into action. They beefed up Secret Service protection for Vice President Cheney and provided security protection to Karl Rove. But they declined to do anything for Valerie. That was a CIA problem.

Valerie contacted the office of Security at CIA and requested assistance. They told her too f*cking bad and to go pound sand. They did not use those exact words, but they told her she was on her own.

Couric: When all is said and done, the top aides to both the president and the vice president leaked your name to reporters. Do you think President Bush was in on this?

Plame: I don't know about that, but I like most other Americans saw President Bush say on TV that he would fire anyone from his administration found to be involved in the leak of my name. It turns out the President is not a man of his word.