EXCITING, EXCITING, EXCITING!! – AT 10:49 P.M. ET:  Get your checkbooks out, polish up those credit cards, test those magnetic stripes.  You will not want to miss the publishing event of the century.  From The New York Times:

The sexy female spy has a well-worn place in popular culture. Angelina Jolie, donning heavy black eyeliner and a slim trench coat, in “Salt.” Halle Berry in “Die Another Day,” seductively climbing out of the surf in an orange bikini.

Who better to roll her eyes at it all than Valerie Plame Wilson, the real-life glamorous former C.I.A. operative?

“They always tend to be cardboard characters, with a heavy reliance on physicality,” Ms. Wilson said, calling from her home in Santa Fe, N.M. “Of course the job has a lot of glamour. But it really is about being smarter than your average bear. Your mind is your best weapon. It’s great when you’re a good shot with an AK-47, but it’s about being clever.”

Fed up with those popular images of the female secret agent, Ms. Wilson decided to draft her own. Eight years after her cover was blown by the political columnist Robert Novak, she has signed a book deal with Penguin Group USA to write a series of international suspense novels, with a fictional operative, Vanessa Pearson, at the center. Ms. Wilson will write them with Sarah Lovett, a best-selling author of mysteries, who also lives in Santa Fe.

The idea for the books, Ms. Wilson said, “was born out of my frustration and continuing disappointment in how female C.I.A. officers are portrayed in popular culture.”

COMMENT:  Yeah, right.  I'll bet she was really frustrated, and thought about it every day.  My Gawd, we are a society in crisis, Ms. Plame must have thought, when female CIA officers are portrayed inaccurately.  It's the crisis of our time.

I assure you that money has nothing to do with this.  Choke.

And, of course, brave Valerie will have a co-author, who will actually write the book.  What will sell it, in the minds of publishing executives, will be the name "Valerie Plame."

Are these print-poisoned executives serious?  There is no name here.  There is nothing here.  Hollywood just made a film about Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame, and there were more people in the theaters selling popcorn than in the audience. 

It's pretty typical of New York publishing circles to think that the Valerie Plame story is still hot.  It was actually never very hot, or even lukewarm, except in the minds of America's liberal elites.  Now it is ice. 

But you can join the excitement for about the going price of a novel, and probably get invited to a really trendy party.

March 18, 2011