http://tinyurl.com/8xk6x

Peace
JTD

I just don’t limit that sentiment to Novak, as I’ll explain.

First – why does he talk about it? It comes up in the context of explaining why Harlow’s statements made no sense:

“He told the Post reporters he had ‘warned’ me that if I ‘did write about it her name should not be revealed.’ That is meaningless. Once it was determined that Wilson’s wife suggested the mission, she could be identified as ‘Valerie Plame’ by reading her husband’s entry in ‘Who’s Who in America.’”

“Who’s Who” games aside, Novak made an enormously stupid, arrogant, partisan hack error by dragging Plame into his original column, IMHO. One can remove the first sentence of para. 6 from his “Mission to Niger” column, and it carries no less weight – think for a moment how THAT might have changed things! Unfortunately, by mentioning her name AND her employer all Novak did was provide an avenue of obfuscation. Stupid, stupid Novak. The “Bush lied” folks have been exploiting that avenue ever since. In the process, they’ve successfully drawn public attention away from Wilson’s erroneous assumptions and, conveniently, away from the press’ complicity in misleading the electorate about the “16 words”.

So I’m fed up with Novak, but I’m also fed up with the Times and ilk incessantly trying to cover *their* butts. They blindly kowtowed to Wilson’s original claims solely to create public doubt over the validity of ousting Saddam and, by extension, the validity of re-electing George W. Bush. Wilson then conveniently dropped out of the picture after the SSCI revelation that his credibility was less than solid.

I know we have differences here regarding what the SSCI proves about Wilson’s credibility. But the official record, currently, is that Wilson (at best) assumed one conclusion by the CIA based on his report, when a very different conclusion was actually drawn. With the gushing help of the press, he very publicly attacked the Bush Administration based solely on that erroneous assumption. That is the issue that’s been pushed aside while people endlessly and pointlessly speculate over who ‘outed’ Plame. At least that’s how I see it.

Novak’s column was a response to questions of accuracy concerning his 2003 piece, not an explanation of where he got Plame’s name.

Then why does he talk about it?

Again, this is a situation where I think you’re firmly planted in one camp and I’m in the other. I read Novak’s column and agree that he’s trying to clear up inaccuracies, but he also uses the opportunity to tell people that he’s not responsible for outing Plame because anybody could have done it. Sure, anybody writing a story about Joesph Wilson who was talking to the CIA about WMD trips could put those things together.

Ask yourself why didn’t we hear about Plame before Novak wrote about her, and you’ll understand where I’m coming from. It’s clear he made a judgement call, and he’s using the Whos Who to cover his tracks. Again, I think it’s a weak move by a partisan hack. If Paul Begala had done the same thing, I’d call him out on the mat too.

Novak’s column was a response to questions of accuracy concerning his 2003 piece, not an explanation of where he got Plame’s name. It’s available here: http://tinyurl.com/e3lgc and I’m surprised it wasn’t linked in the interest of evenly presenting this issue.