Who are the people in your neighborhood?

I'm no special prosecutor, but I am getting a tad bit suspicious of the people in my neighborhood. I blame it on Valerie Plame. Fall-out from her "outing" as a CIA agent doesn't just include a couple of federal indictments for Irving Lewis "Scooter" Libby - by the way, you can tell the when someone's in a legal jam by the vast expansion of the person's name in the press. The minute we find out Karl Rove's middle name, you'll know he's toast.

After months of investigation we learned that Mrs. Plame-Wilson claimed to be an "economic consultant" for a Boston company called Brewster Jennings. In the final days of the grand jury probe we learned how little the people in her neighborhood knew about Ms. Plame's clandestine life. Now, I'm feeling a little fishy about all the "consultants" on my block.

Valerie Plame only seemed like a typical soccer Mom, chauffeuring the kids, setting up play dates with her neighbor's grandchildren, having dinner with the locals. When the Robert Novak column came out and blew her cover, the woman next door, Victoria Tilloston screamed in shock. Victoria had been so certain that Valerie was an economist that she'd taken a stock market tip from her. But that mild-mannered number-crunching Momma was really a secret agent gal. Another flabbergasted neighbor was astounded because she acted like "a normal person" and didn't seem she was "undercover."

Perhaps this is why our intelligence community has been suffering a recent succession of failures. Maybe they should be hiring the posse of goof-balls in my variety of zip codes. Like the guy who ordered hundreds of women's shoes. He lived alone and I only ever saw him wearing clothing now banned by the NBA. Then there's the old guy who hobbled around tooting an old bicycle horn on his walker to get attention while speaking in strange accents. He claimed he did the voices of inanimate objects for animated movies. Actually, I do think I heard him rehearsing his groundbreaking tea-pot. And how about that woman who constantly vacuumed her front steps? Was she afraid of KGB spy dust? Oh wait, she's my mother.

That Valerie Plame was able to live under-cover amongst the madding crowd just goes to show, you can't really know who is lurking behind those picket fences. Ms.Plame's cover as a "consultant" caused me to start looking apprehensively at the "media consultant" next door. I just thought it meant he was out of work. My gal-pal neighbor thinks he's probably being cagey because he's in the pornography business. I'm not sure I trust her opinion. She says she's a "graphic designer", but she doesn't even have a crayon in her house, let alone graph paper. Maybe she's a spy. Who is to say her dog walks aren't a surreptitious way to gather critical data on those who don't recycle? Even my Dad calls himself an "advertising consultant." The truth is he's always been a whiz at extracting double-super-secret cross-your-heart-hope-to-use-executive-privilege-and-die information. Is he really moonlighting at Guantanamo Bay?

I still can't get over how shocked all of Plame's neighbors were. They should have known. She said she worked for Brewster Jennings. A quick Google search shows Brewster Jennings is a guy who rents out a vacation spread in Durango, Colorado. But the real tip off was her right on the money financial advice. And she wanted people to believe that came from a real economic consultant. Like I'm supposed to believe that ever happens.

By Stephanie Becker