Pride Goeth Before the Court

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao welcomes President Bush to the Diaoyutai state guesthouse in Beijing. (Pool Photo By Jason Lee)

"So at this moment, I begin my tenure in this Chamber, uncertain of what history [history?] will say of my tenure here," she said humbly. ". . . I pledge to each of you that any disagreements we may have are just that and no more."

Well, maybe a little more.

Plame to Retire

---

Word is Valerie Plame is going to retire from the CIA on Dec. 9 after 20 years at the agency in the operations directorate -- the cloak-and-dagger folks -- including a decade or so in a "non-official cover" status or NOC, which involves setting up lots of cover, an always-difficult task, and even more so now in the age of Google.

The retirement frees her up to reflect a bit in public about all that's happened since columnist Robert Novak blew her cover.

An Old Deal

---

The news out of North Korea in September was that U.S. diplomats had scored a major breakthrough, obtaining a tentative agreement laying out how North Korea would give up its nuclear weapons and Washington and its partners would offer aid, security assurances and the like.

Turns out New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) says he got the same deal back in January 2003, according to his new memoir, "Between Worlds."

"I was going back and forth on the phone with [then-Secretary of State Colin ] Powell ," Richardson writes, "and, in the end, we got a small breakthrough. Fortunately, it was never announced.

"We had agreed on a broad framework for progress -- an economic assistance package and a still-to-be-defined security guarantee against a U.S. attack in exchange for verifiable movement on the dismantling of North Korea's nuclear program. The North Koreans also backtracked," on other demands, Richardson recalled -- though his memory has been a bit suspect of late.

"A final deal would involve heavy negotiations. The administration, pushed by Powell, initially approved bilateral discussions. But apparently Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld went ballistic. No way, they said. The talks had to be multilateral."

And so they were.

Quotable

---

"We don't agree on every issue, but we do agree we should discuss our differences and our likenesses in a cordial manner."

-- President Bush, meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao last week