An Experienced Libby Feigns Ignorance?

This report is aimed mostly at lazy and/or intentionally misleading members of the mainstream media, not at Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald (although I would truly love to hear his uncensored opinion of what I have to say). Reporters keep trumpeting the possibility that Libby may not have realized that Valerie Plame Wilson was a classified (secret) agent with the CIA. In so doing, they seem to be trying to play down Libby's role in "outing" her (as opposed to the other charges filed against him today). Let us see if I can make my point:

Today, Irving Lewis "Scooter" Libby was indicted on five counts (two perjury, two making false statements and one obstruction of justice). Regrettably (because neo-conservative hacks may now continue to make pitiful excuses for him), none of those five counts are aimed at the fact that he probably knowingly (illegally) revealed the identity of an undercover CIA agent.

Twenty-Five Years of Ignorance?
Since 1981, Libby has held positions in the State Department, the Department of Defense and as Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. In those nearly 25 years of top-level government experience, he has probably had extensive dealings with the CIA. If average Americans are aware of the operational policies of the CIA with regard to their agents' identities, then one can reasonably assume that Libby was also aware of them. In fact, one year after he entered high-level government service in the Reagan Administration, a law was passed forbidding anyone from knowingly revealing the identity of an undercover CIA agent. There is no way he could not have been aware of this law (at least not without being incompetent).

To clarify, there are two types of CIA employees: undercover and not undercover. It's as simple as that. There is no gray area. Libby, a person with 25 years of high-level government experience (I'm going to continue to repeat this), must certainly have known that Valerie Plame Wilson was either undercover or not undercover. There was no in-between. In preparing for his secret meetings with journalists in 2003, one could justifiably expect such an experienced official as Libby to ask himself, "Is Plame an undercover agent, or is she not an undercover agent? Maybe I should check this out before I open my big, fat mouth to reporters. It is in my best interests, not to mention the nation's best interests, to do so."

Three Scenarios
(In which Libby receives some preliminary, albeit token, benefit of the doubt)

1.) It DID NOT OCCUR to Libby, a 25-year veteran of high-level government service, that the CIA employee he was preparing to identify to journalists MIGHT be undercover, even though the odds of her being undercover are clearly fifty-fifty. There is no way, without his being a slobbering idiot, that he could not have known the odds are fifty-fifty.

So why did he proceed to reveal her name to those journalists, anyway?

2.) It DID OCCUR to Libby, a 25-year veteran of high-level government service, that the CIA employee he was preparing to identify to journalists MIGHT be undercover. This possibility would have occurred to him because the odds of her being undercover are clearly fifty-fifty.

He just didn't care.

3.) It was DEFINITELY KNOWN to Libby, a 25-year veteran of high-level government service, that the CIA employee he was preparing to identify to journalists WAS undercover.

However, her undercover status was completely irrelevant to him and to those for whom he worked.

Conclusion
Why are these fifty-fifty odds never mentioned by members of the media? Are they still trying to placate both the White House and their conservative viewers? Instead of mentioning those even odds, they always act as if it was a one-in-a-million shot that Libby accidentally "outed" an undercover CIA agent. Are members of the press that stupid? Probably. Or do they think all of us are that stupid? Probably.