Valerie Plame, Desperate Housewife

The stench of desperation is eminating from the home of Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame. Following the collapse of any criminal case against arch-nemesis Karl Rove, and just a day or so after Bob Novak blew up whatever might have been left of their complaint, the dyspectic duo filed a frivolous lawsuit:

The CIA officer whose identity was leaked to reporters sued Vice President Dick Cheney, his former top aide and presidential adviser Karl Rove on Thursday, accusing them and other White House officials of conspiring to destroy her career.
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Valerie Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador, accused Cheney, Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby of revealing Plame's CIA identity in seeking revenge against Wilson for criticizing the Bush administration's motives in Iraq.

Several news organizations wrote about Plame after syndicated columnist Robert Novak named her in a column on July 14, 2003. Novak's column appeared eight days after Wilson alleged in an opinion piece in The New York Times that the administration had twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq to justify going to war.

The CIA had sent Wilson to Niger in early 2002 to determine whether there was any truth to reports that Saddam Hussein's government had tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger to make a nuclear weapon. Wilson discounted the reports, but the allegation nevertheless wound up in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address.

The lawsuit accuses Cheney, Libby, Rove and 10 unnamed administration officials or political operatives of putting the Wilsons and their children's lives at risk by exposing Plame.

"This lawsuit concerns the intentional and malicious exposure by senior officials of the federal government of ... (Plame), whose job it was to gather intelligence to make the nation safer and who risked her life for her country," the Wilsons' lawyers said in the lawsuit.

Specifically, the lawsuit accuses the White House officials of violating the Wilsons' constitutional rights to equal protection and freedom of speech. It also accuses the officials of violating the couple's privacy rights.

Hey, if they wanted privacy, then they shouldn't write books and make entries in Who's Who. This lawsuit has absolutely zero chance of accomplishing anything except extending their 15 minutes of fame for a few more fleeting seconds.

UPDATE: Here's how Brit Hume described the complaint on Special Report:

On a day when Valerie Plame -- former CIA employee Valerie Plame and her husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson, there they had their picture taken on Capitol Hill as they were headed toward or from a meeting with Senate democrats, they also filed a lawsuit, the two of them did, in federal court here in Washington charging the vice president, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and others with a conspiracy to wreck their careers in violation of their civil rights. It says, among other things:

"This lawsuit concerns the intentional and malicious exposure by senior officials of the federal government of one such human source at the CIA, Valerie Plame Wilson, whose job it was to gather intelligence to make the nation safer and who risked her life for her country. This complaint" it goes on to say, "arises out a of conspiracy among current and former high-level officials in the White House.to violate the constitutional and other legal rights of Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV."

He was having a hard time keeping a straight face.