Valerie Plame, wife of ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson
and one time CIA operative, claimed on Monday that CBS spunky reporter Katie
Couric “could be an intelligence operative.”
Following Couric’s interview with Ms. Plame on
CBS’s 60 Minutes program, Plame pointed out that Couric seems to have all the
skills and talents needed for undercover intelligence work.
“Nobody takes her seriously, she’s good looking,
and she speaks in the most gosh-awful riddles,” said Plame, “she could be my
replacement.”
Couric had seasoned the interview with revelations
such as Scooter Libby’s wife is not a CIA operative (which Plame disputed.)
Plame noted on her 60 Minutes interview that she
was an operative for many years, until the Bush administration intentionally
leaked her identity in retaliation for her husband’s repudiation of some of the
administration’s reasons for going to war with Iraq. Public reaction to the
interview has been mixed. Conservatives consider it a hatchet job on the Bush
administration, while many college age males have phoned in requests for photos
of Plame in her New Mexico office wearing jeans and sweater. Trevor Wadsworth
of Columbus, Ohio, wrote in stating that “Valerie is hotter than Mrs.
Robinson!,” in a reference to the 1960’s movie “The Graduate.