Novak on the Plame leak: a pattern of contradictions

[norml]

Novak on the Plame leak: a pattern of contradictions



In the two years since CNN contributor and syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak exposed former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative, he has made several contradictory statements with respect to crucial issues in the case. In two instances, Novak's account of events appeared to change in fall 2003 after the Justice Department launched a formal investigation into the leak case. Novak's most recent contradiction, on the other hand, appeared in his August 1 column. In the piece, he broke his longstanding silence on the issue to respond to allegations by ex-CIA spokesman Bill Harlow in a recent Washington Post article and to defend his "integrity as a journalist."

The nature of the leak

In his original 2003 column, Novak wrote that Plame was a CIA "operative" and that she had "suggested" sending her husband on a 2002 CIA mission to investigate allegations that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from Niger. Following the column's July 14 publication, Novak gave Newsday reporters Timothy M. Phelps and Knut Royce an account of how he learned Plame's identity from the "two senior administration officials" he had cited in the column:

Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."

On September 28, 2003, the Justice Department launched an official investigation into the leak case. Noting that the story had "reached the front pages of major newspapers," Novak wrote an October 1, 2003, column in which his depiction of the leak conflicted with the account he had provided to Phelps and Royce months earlier. He stressed that the administration official who disclosed Plame's identity had not come to him with the information but, rather, had in an "offhand" way mentioned her role at the CIA in response to questions regarding Wilson's selection for the mission:


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http://mediamatters.org/items/200508050005

[Mr_Spock]

1. Novak's goin' to jaaaail, Novak's going to jail!

Poor Novakla and his wooden George Washington teeth :rofl:

[bahrbearian]

4. Thats too funny, LOL

[Mr_Spock]

5. I actually saw a Crossfire where his teeth were falling down on TV!!

His front teeth kept falling down as he was talking and he kept shoving them back up where they belong - may have been the most embarrasing thing I've seen on live TV. :D

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. Didn't he recently claim

that he looked her up in a Who's Who?

Fitzgerald must be having a blast with Novak, he changes his story faster then he can change his socks.

[napi21]

3. Legally, it doesn't matter what he said in his columns or on air.

What matters is if he contradicted himself during GJ testimony. OR, if his testimony contradicts someonw elses testimony.

I must admit, he must have been very on edge yesterday!

Wonder if we'll hear anything about his testimony of today?

[norml]

6. Jay Rosen: Why Robert Novak Stormed Off the Set

Jay Rosen: Why Robert Novak Stormed Off the Set
1 hour, 16 minutes ago



Thursday afternoon Robert Novak stormed off the set of CNN's "Inside Politics" and got himself suspended. He also eluded questions about the Valerie Plame case that were going to be asked by a CNN colleague, anchor Ed Henry, who said he warned Novak before the show began that he would be raising the matter. (The Transcript. The video.)

For months, Novak has been under pressure to answer questions from fellow journalists. On July 7 (see Time for Robert Novak to Feel Some Chill) I wrote at the Huffington Post: "If you're Jonathan Klein, president of CNN/US, you take him off the air until he decides to go on the air and explain." Novak's friends should tell him to take some time off, I said.

It just seemed to me, as a viewer, that Novak was in an impossible position every time he went on the air to talk politics. If he met his duty to himself (by not speaking up while the Plame case was open) then he could not meet his duty to his peers and his profession.

This was to tell CNN viewers just what he knows about a newsworthy story, and answer a fair-minded interviewer's questions. Putting the man on the air in a situation so constrained was neither fair nor wise. It didn't make journalistic sense, or human sense. (And where was his agent -- rooting him on to disaster?)


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http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20050806/cm_huffpost/005233