OOps. That brush is a tad broad for the known facts, IMHO. It’s a crime if (1) the CIA employee is a covert CIA employee and (2) the confirmer knows that the CIA employee is covert and confirms their covert status. Information leaked to date – since we haven’t yet seen the actual testimony – doesn’t indicate this was the case.

Novak obviously wasn’t worried about mentioning Plame by name back in July of 2003 most likely because the thought probably never crossed his mind that Plame was “covert” – probably because, as Andrea Mitchell has mentioned, it was common knowledge that Wilson’s wife was a CIA *employee*, and the fishing Novak did seems most likely intended to confirm *that* aspect.

Novak is still the instigator here, IMHO. His July 14 piece could have made its point w/o mentioning Plame. Bringing her into the picture seems like it was done solely to play up a CIA vs. WH angle, as well as to cast doubt on Wilson’s credibility, and Novak’s choice of the colorful term “operative” instead of “analyst” is a huge part of what has fed the hyperbole and obscured what I believe was the real problem here: Wilson’s erroneous assumptions about what was done with the information he provided on Niger.

Those assumptions, and Wilson’s subsequent erroneous perception that his words had been twisted by the WH, are the only real part of this entire affair, IMHO, and constitute a simple – but ultimately very incendiary – misunderstanding. And this is easy to see in Wilson’s statement to Novak: “The story was never me … it was always the statement in (Bush’s) speech.”

The Plame angle and ensuing blame game over publication of her status (to date I have yet to see any final confirmation that she was “covert”) has obscured all this, and I think that started happening on purpose – focusing on a crime related to Plame’s “outing” rather than Wilson’s erroroneous assumptions – as soon as the Bush-hating side of the media realized they could use it to get at the administration, and now Rove specifically, and further erode support for a successful outcome in Iraq.

A journalist reads aloud over the telephone a document from one source to another source who had previously said “X”. The document says “Y”. The second source says of the document: “Well, if that’s what he wrote then that’s what he felt”. The journalist then claims that the second source CONFIRMS THE DOCUMENT?

A journalist hears than an investigation will reveal several improprieties and calls a source who might be privvy to the data to get confirmation. The source says alleged impropriety number 3 is unsubstantiated. So the journalist reports allegations 1 thru N, omitting allegation 3, as CONFIRMED?

A journalist hears rumor X and from source 1 and calls source 2, dropping the rumor into the middle of another conversation. Source 2 says, “Yeah, I’ve heard that too.” And so the journalist reports the story as CONFIRMED?

“You keep using that word. I do not believe it means what you think it does.”