Novak Recycles Gannon on 'Plame-gate'
By Robert Parry
August 2, 2005
Right-wing columnist Robert Novak’s new attack on former Ambassador Joseph Wilson – that he was “discarded a year ago by the Kerry presidential campaign” – recycled a disputed report from Talon News correspondent Jeff Gannon, who was unmasked earlier this year as a pro-Republican operative working under an assumed name.
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Assault on Wilson
Novak’s column also resumed the Right’s long-running assault on Wilson’s credibility. Near the end of the column, Novak wrote that “Joseph Wilson was discarded a year ago by the Kerry presidential campaign after the Senate {intelligence} committee reported that much of what he {Wilson} said ‘had no basis in fact.’”
However, Novak’s sentence appears to be wrong on both its points.
The Senate Intelligence Committee did not conclude that Wilson’s statements about the Iraqi intelligence “had no basis in fact.” That was a phrase that Novak culled from “additional views” of three Republican senators.
The full committee refused to accept that opinion written by Sen. Pat Roberts and backed by two other conservative Republicans – Christopher Bond and Orrin Hatch – yet Novak left the impression that the phrase was part of what he called “a unanimous Senate intelligence committee report” released in July 2004.The other part of Novak’s attack on Wilson – about his supposed repudiation by Sen. John Kerry’s Democratic campaign – can be traced back to a story by Talon News’ former White House correspondent Jeff Gannon, whose real name is James Guckert.
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http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/080205.html(my bold)