Novack Oct 1: Trying to cover his ass Column

[Mari333]

I had thought I never again would write about retired diplomat Joseph Wilson's CIA-employee wife, but feel constrained to do so now that repercussions of my July 14 column have reached the front pages of major newspapers and led off network news broadcasts. My role and the role of the Bush White House have been distorted and need explanation.>>


http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20031001.shtml

[Brucey]

1. Some loyal repugs will buy his crap,

but the truth is starting to get out... Novak screwed up; he outed an operative for purely political reasons.

[Cocoa]

2. he's changing his story

he previously said that the leaks were unsolicited.

He also fails to answer the question, WHY did he print Plame's name?

[liberalnurse]

5. This is almost

as good as a deposition. He is impeaching himself.

[Junkdrawer]

3. Bob is using every lie and distortion he can get his hands on:

* Plame was an analyst - "operative" in the original column was a mistake.

* The White House didn't shop the story to six other journalists.

* I asked the CIA and no one warned me that revealing her name was a problem.

* Everyone knew Plame was CIA

[Mari333]

7. Yep hes lying and using smoke and mirrors

He should have watched the Lehrer report, she WAS an operative, and he cites NOFACTS in that column ..just "people in DC knew she was in the CIA"...whaaaaa? no names, Novack?
He's scared and deservedly so.

[Cocoa]

10. he forgot one of the talking points

Wilson supports Kerry, which apparently means it's OK to blow his wife's cover.

[Mari333]

14. Wilson also donated to the GOP

a fact conveniently not mentioned by the right wing spin machine

why do I think this will slowly end up being the fault of Clinton's penis ?

[HootieMcBoob]

18. He also pointed out on Nightline

that his first appointed position was during the Bush I administration. The man is a career diplomat with impeccable credentials. Novak is a political hack. Who do you believe?

[wtmusic]

4. My Role Has Been Clarified And Needs To Be Re-Distorted

How does he know the leaks were unintentional?

On what basis does he assume her identity was no longer confidential?

[tishaLA]

6. He's just unbelievable!

From his column:

"To protect my own integrity and credibility, I would like to stress three points. First, I did not receive a planned leak. Second, the CIA never warned me that the disclosure of Wilson's wife working at the agency would endanger her or anybody else. Third, it was not much of a secret."

1. How does he KNOW it's not a planned leak? He says in his column that he found out about Wilson's wife because he asked how a CLinton appointee (also a Bush 41 appointee) got the Niger assignment. But the "senior administration official" nonetheless revealed her identity to him. Just because Novak is too stupid to understand that he has been duped--a planned leak can look unplanned, Bob--doesnn't mean that he wasn't, in fact, duped.

2. Novak has already said that the CIA told him not to publish her name. What did he need? Someone to say "Look, Novakula, she's a spy so don't do it"? By his logic, the CIA would have to expose her to him so he wouldn't be compelled to expose her to the public.

3. It doesn't matter if the Beltway folks knew her job. Her friends didn't. And, apparently, her contacts didn't either. Maybe the only thing that is still secret to Novak is that he published a planned leak.

[Mari333]

9. Yes he acts like he knows whether it was planned or not

We can make him the Independent Counsel Prosecuter! He seems to know it all!
:bounce:

[Terran]

19. He also appears to be claiming

that six other journalists were in fact *not* contacted with the same information. Is there any doubt that that did happen? And assuming it did, that is pretty convincing evidence that the identity of Valerie Plame was not a casually stated fact--such a fact is not casually stated to seven journalists if the Admin didn't want it out there.

[HFishbine]

22. How would he know?

Pretty hard to prove a negative. Maybe he know that seven were contacted, or five perhaps.

[HootieMcBoob]

20. Also he says that Wilson refused to talk about his wife

So...here we go again with some classic Novak logic:

Because Wilson refused to confirm to Novak that his wife was an undercover CIA operative, Novak takes that as an ok to go ahead and print her name.

So, if Wilson had outed his own wife to Novak then Novak would have been satisfied and not have done it. He expected Wilson to break the law and reveal classified information to Novak (political hack) in order to keep his wife's name out of the newspapers.

Good God! This man is a pathetic piece of shit!

[rocktivity]

29. Welcome to DU, TishaLA!

:hi:

My take on Novak's "three-point play":
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=141923#141960


rocknation

[chopper]

8. ah, semantics...

notice how he tries to paint Plame as a 'mere analyst' by saying that sources told him that she "has been an analyst".

of course, "has been an analyst" means nothing. hell, i 'have been' a busboy, it doesn't mean that i was a busboy as recently as last week.

given the reports by Newsday etc that state that unofficial CIA sources have also said she was a Directorate of Operations in an undercover capacity, i'm starting to believe that not only is Novak trying to cover his ass, but he's outright lying.

[Cocoa]

15. what about his explanation for his using the word "operative"?

When he said "CIA operative" he really meant "political hack."

Right, Bob...

[Brian Sweat]

16. "The British have evidence that Iraq was trying to purchase Uranium."

This is how they lie. They tell the truth with intent to decieve.

[HFishbine]

23. Right up there with

"had weapons of mass destruction."

I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I do not pay attention to verb tense. Just hit the key words and context won't matter. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. Go Jeff Gordon!

[HootieMcBoob]

11. What a pathetic piece of shit

It's so transparently bullshit. Check out this logic:

At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help.

Somehow apparently leads Novak to this...

I used it (her name) in the sixth paragraph of my column because it looked like the missing explanation of an otherwise incredible choice by the CIA for its mission.

What the hell?

After the CIA refutes his assertion he uses that as the reason he printed her name, after they asked him not to? Does this make any sense at all? It only lends credence to the theory that he printed her name because it was leaked to him in order to intimidate.

This is just the biggest piece of weirdness in the article. It's overflowing with bs. After listening to Larry Johnson of the CIA on The Newshour you clearly see how much this whole thing smells.

[Mari333]

13. I wonder if he wrote this BEFORE Larry Johnson spoke

cause now this column puts his tit in a wringer and the lies are easily pointed out..!

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. "Not much of a secret" is no excuse.

To people in the inside circles, nothing is much of a secret. It's BECAUSE they have access to sensitive information that they should act with far more discretion than the average person. And if they do not, they don't deserve that position of privilege.

[arwalden]

17. Oh... Okay, Robert. Thanks For The Explanation. All Is Forgiven.

... nothing here to see folks.... keep moving. Keep moving.

-- Allen

[HFishbine]

21. Whoop! There it is.

"First, I did not receive a planned leak."

So, he acknowledges it was a leak. Fair enough. We can leave it at that and not delve into the possibility that Novak was a rube who would have no idea whether or not the leak was planned by those he was speaking to.

"Second, the CIA never warned me that the disclosure of Wilson's wife working at the agency would endanger her or anybody else."

Okay. Although he acknowledges that harm was a possible result of the revelation, he wasn't warned. Well, duh. If Novak was to fulfil his proper role, why would the leakers caution him?

"Third, it was not much of a secret."

Just a little secret and one that is illegal to divulge.

Thanks Bob. That clears up a lot.

[Snellius]

24. What a stupid old fool!

He'll write anything his masters tell him to. Without a thought about what he's doing or who it may hurt. Yesterday on Crossfire he was joking about how so many people had lost their health insurance. Carville came as close to verbally punching his lights out as he could get. Novak is an Opus Dei fanatic. He should be apologizing not alibing.

[Oilwellian]

25. Larry Johnson's response

"The reporters who did not file a story and promised, or given assurance to these individuals that they would be protected, they need to come forward. To hear bob Novak parsing words like a Clinton lawyer defining sex is outrageous. Sure, they didn't call him, he called them but they volunteered the information. They took the initiative to divulge the CIA officer's name. And that is outrageous."

"Let's be very clear about what happened. This is not an alleged abuse. This is a confirmed abuse. I worked with this woman. She started training with me. She has been undercover for three decades, she is not as Bob Novak suggested a CIA analyst. But given that, I was a CIA analyst for four years. I was undercover. I could not divulge to my family outside of my wife that I worked for the Central Intelligence Agency until I left the agency on September 30, 1989. At that point I could admit it."

"So the fact that she's been undercover for three decades and that has been divulged is outrageous because she was put undercover for certain reasons. One, she works in an area where people she meets with overseas could be compromised. When you start tracing back who she met with, even people who innocently met with her, who are not involved in CIA operations, could be compromised. For these journalists to argue that this is no big deal and if I hear another Republican operative suggesting that well, this was just an analyst fine, let them go undercover. Let's put them overseas and let's out them and then see how they like it. They won't be able to stand the heat."

"I say this as a registered Republican. I'm on record giving contributions to the George Bush campaign. This is not about partisan politics. This is about a betrayal, a political smear of an individual with no relevance to the story. Publishing her name in that story added nothing to it. His entire intent was correctly as Ambassador Wilson noted: to intimidate, to suggest that there was some impropriety that somehow his wife was in a decision making position to influence his ability to go over and savage a stupid policy, an erroneous policy and frankly, what was a false policy of suggesting that there were nuclear material in Iraq that required this war. This was about a political attack. To pretend that it's something else and to get into this parsing of words, I tell you, it sickens me to be a Republican to see this."

[trof]

26. Wilson served under Pres. Ford.

Ambassador Wilson was a member of the U.S. Diplomatic Service from 1976 until 1998. His early assignments included Niamey, Niger, 1976-1978; Lome, Togo, 1978-79; the State Department Bureau of African Affairs, 1979-1981; and Pretoria, South Africa, 1981-1982.

Gerald Ford : 1974-1977
Jimmy Carter : 1977-1981
Ronald Reagan : 1981-1989
George Bush : 1989-1993
Bill Clinton : 1993-2001

Ambassador Wilson holds the Department of Defense Distinguished Service Award, the Department of State Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards, the University of California, Santa Barbara Distinguished Alumnus Award, and the American Foreign Service Association William R. Rivkin Award.

[kentuck]

27. This comment by Novak doesn't make sense ??

"At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help. He asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name. I used it in the sixth paragraph of my column because it looked like the missing explanation of an otherwise incredible choice by the CIA for its mission."
===========================================================

They told him not to use the name because it might cause 'difficulties', but Novak says he never suggested that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. It seems that is exactly what he was told...

[fob]

28. I've read several things on townhall.com and they've all been RW

This is obviously Nofacts getting the RNC spin points out to those that need them to obfuscate and confuse.