What testimony was the AP watching?

I watched much of the Valerie Plame testimony today Friday. Ms. Plame was forceful, authoritative, and enlightening about exactly what transpired in her "outing" and the extent to which Karl Rove and Dick Cheney were involved in the matter.

However, hack reporter Julie Hirschfeld Davis apparently didn't see the same testimony:

WASHINGTON - Valerie Plame put a glamorous face and a personal story to Democrats' criticism of the Bush administration Friday, telling a House committee that White House and State Department officials "carelessly and recklessly" blew her CIA cover in a politically motivated smear of her husband.

Plame, the operative at the center of the leak scandal that resulted in last week's criminal conviction of a former top White House official, created more of a stir by her presence on Capitol Hill than by her testimony.

She revealed little new information about the case, which sparked a federal investigation and brought perjury and obstruction of justice convictions of Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. No one has been charged with leaking her identity.

Still, Plame's appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was a moment of political theater that dramatized Democrats' drive to use their control of Congress to expose what they see as White House efforts to intimidate dissenters.

So, basically, Davis saw a pretty face and not much else. Evidently she was so dazzled by Ms. Plame's pulchritude that she was unable to hear a single word she said.

And the headline, Plame sheds little light in leak case, merely highlights the worst example of hack journalism I've seen in a veritable cornucopia of hack journalism in the last several years. Whether it's willfully ignorant columnists like David Broder or Joe Klein, or reporters like Davis or Nedra Pickler, journalism has jumped the shark once and for all. Edward R. Murrow isn't just spinning in his grave -- he's doing a full-out Olympic gymnastics floor exercise in there.

Compare Davis' steaming pile of shit with what actually happened, as reported by Amy Goldstein in the Washington Post:

Valerie Plame, the former CIA officer at the heart of a four-year political furor over the Bush administration's leak of her identity, lashed out at the White House yesterday, testifying in Congress that the president's aides destroyed a career she loved and slipped her name to reporters for "purely political motives."

Plame, breaking her public silence about the case, contended that her name and job "were carelessly and recklessly abused" by the government. Although she and her colleagues knew that "we might be exposed and threatened by foreign enemies," she said, "it was a terrible irony that administration officials were the ones who destroyed my cover."

Plame calmly but firmly knocked down longstanding claims by administration allies that the disclosure was not criminal because she had not worked in a covert capacity.

"I am here to say I was a covert officer of the Central Intelligence Agency," Plame told House members, a horde of journalists and a few antiwar activists. Her work, she said, "was not common knowledge on the Georgetown cocktail circuit."

Plame also provided the most detailed account to date of her role in a decision by the agency to dispatch her husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, to Niger five years ago to assess reports that Iraq had sought to buy nuclear material from the African nation.

Rebutting an assertion by White House officials to reporters that she had sent her husband on the trip, Plame said a CIA colleague broached the idea after a call in early 2002 from Vice President Cheney's office seeking information about Iraqi activity in Niger. Plame said she "wasn't overjoyed" at the idea because it would leave her alone at bedtime with their 2-year-old twins.

Still, she said, at the direction of her supervisor, she asked her husband whether he would come to CIA headquarters at Langley to discuss the possible trip and sent a quick e-mail about the prospect to the chief of the agency's counterproliferation division, where she worked.

"I did not suggest him," she said. "There was no nepotism involved. I didn't have the authority."

Plame's poised, two-hour turn at the witness table, in the marbled hearing room of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, was a theatrical sequel to the lengthy trial of Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, which ended last week. Libby was convicted of four felonies for lying to FBI agents and a federal grand jury about his role in disclosing Plame's identity.

Goldstein heard what I heard: a definitive debunking under oath of the GOP talking point that Plame influenced, if not outright controlled, the selection of her husband, Joe Wilson, to go to Niger. Just as importantly, she emphasized under oath that she was a covert agent whose cover was blown by the reckless actions of administration officials.

Yet, Julie Hirschfeld Davis found "little new information about the case." Well, perhaps you'd like to join me in sharing your thoughts with Ms. Davis via e-mail at julie.davis@baltsun.com. Check out "Julie explains it all for you" first ... quite enlightening.