Valerie Plame Wilson came to fame during the George W. Bush administration, when she alleged that neoconservatives had exposed her as a CIA operative in revenge for her husband’s work undermining the case for the Iraq war. It turned out that it was Richard Armitage, a skeptic of the war and no neoconservative, who had revealed her employment. But the investigation consumed Washington, D.C., for years.


Wilson is back in the news because yesterday she tweeted out an article titled, “America’s Jews are Driving America’s Wars.” The article’s content turns out to be, somehow, even worse than the headline; it includes a proposal that Jews be identified as such on tv when they say anything about foreign policy. Her initial response to criticism was a tweet urging people to calm down and saying that while she wasn’t endorsing the article it was “thoughtful.” She added that she was “of Jewish decent” (double sic). She said that people should “read the entire article” without “biases.”

Then came the apology. “OK folks, look, I messed up. I skimmed this piece, zeroed in on the neocon criticism, and shared it without seeing and considering the rest.” So, on her telling, she hadn’t actually “read the entire article” even as she defended it by telling others to read it. “I missed gross undercurrents to this article.” Undercurrents? Check out the title!


A lot of the coverage of this controversy–I’m looking at you, CNN.com and foxnews.com–doesn’t mention that she has a history of promoting such content.

So now we can understand why she dislikes neoconservatives so much even though they never outed her.