The nature of "covert"

Well, I just can't do any better than to share with you a blog entry by John Aravosis on AMERICAblog. First of all, John quotes a New York Times article thusly:

The chairman [of the Senate Intelligence Committee], Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, said on the CNN program "Late Edition".... "I must say from a common-sense standpoint, driving back and forth to work to the C.I.A. headquarters, I don't know if that really qualifies as being, you know, covert," Mr. Roberts said.

Then here's what John himself has to say about it:

See, now this fascinates me. Apparently, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is a total idiot, liar, or simply doesn't care about national security. Driving back and forth to Langley doesn't make you covert? Uh, so Roberts is suggesting that undercover CIA agents don't even visit Langley at all, because that would blow their cover? That's just bizarre thinking since Langley is where they train, and it's their HQ. Not to mention, other CIA agents have already made clear that lots of covert agents drive back and forth to Langley.

At this point Republican members of Congress are simply making shit up. And that's scary. Very scary. Our national security during war time isn't some cute political game where we bring out the top Senator on intelligence issues and have him lie publicly about what constitutes a covert CIA agent, just so he can help get the president out of a bind.

I'm still trying to figure out when did Republicans start hating national security? Can hatred of our troops be far behind?

I agree that it's very worrying for Republicans to have so little concern about security that they're willing for a covert CIA operative to be outed.