Robert Novak the Whistleblower

Accuracy In Media ^ | August 7, 2006 | By Roger Aronoff

[johnny7]

The real issue was why Joseph Wilson was the person to go to Niger to seek the answers

Robert Novak's decision to speak publicly about his role in the CIA leak case reinforces our view that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald investigated the wrong people. Novak, who was doing his job and never violated any law against disclosing the secret identities of CIA agents, has said that he believes that CIA employee Valerie Plame's identity was disclosed by Aldrich Ames, the former CIA agent who was in the service of the Soviet Union, long before he wrote his column.

The CIA, of course, had to know this. Nevertheless, a faction of the agency got the investigation of Novak and his sources under way through a request to the Justice Department. Almost on cue, the media then joined that campaign, using it to damage the Bush foreign policy on Iraq. In the end, though, all they could come up with was a questionable indictment of vice presidential chief of staff Lewis Libby, who is going on trial mainly because his memory of events conflicts with that of Tim Russert and other media figures.

[johnny7]

“Now, ironically, with the filing of a lawsuit against Vice President Cheney himself, there is a chance that more information about the nature of what appeared to be a joint CIA/media campaign against the Bush Administration will be revealed.”

From the git-go... I believed this was a RATher/Mapes/Burkett-type scam. The only thing different was this time the MSM/DNC 'reporters' got two, active government employees to join in.

[altura]

Maybe Tim Russert should be the one going on trial, if it's a he said/he said thing.

The whole thing was a fiasco.

[ClearCase_guy]

I've never like the Billy Joel song "We didn't start the fire", but it does contain an impressive list of historical events from the post WWII era.

What we need is a version for media malfeasance:

Dan Rather, Jayson Blair, GM cars blowing up on air
Qana was a great big fake, Reuters photos take the cake,
CIA and the news, work together, they hate Jews,
Joe Wilson, and Ms Plame, did the deed, how did Cheney get the blame?

[kcmt01]

Of course, the one fact everyone seems to have forgotten is that Wilson was lying. Saddam had a large supply of yellow-cake, almost certainly from Niger. Just google "radiation sickness baghdad" for the rest of the story.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Blaming Cheney was the last gasp in Joe & Val's excellent media adventure. I'll bet no fewer than a dozen books will provide the pair with a limitless income stream into retirement.

[mountainlyons]

Didn't I read somewhere that Resident Clinton did something that got all the CIA killed in Iran a few years ago?

[cousair]

The whole Wilson/Plame affair was a no brainer from the start, and I personally would like to kick Novak right out of the picture for starting the whole thing. It took time, money and worry on the part of our top leaders who were and will be dealing with the important aspects of the war. These people left over from the Clinton years in the CIA and other like departments should have been out of there when the GOP took over. Most of the trouble we have seen starts and stops with these types, and the Wilson/Plame couple are at the top of the list.

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

NBC chief foreign correspondent Andrea Mitchell created a stir when she stated a few months after Novak's original column that Plame's identity was well known in certain Washington circles, undermining the claim that Novak had "outed" her. She later claimed to have misspoken. Did Mitchell talk to Tim Russert and others in the media about Wilson and Plame? Did they talk to Libby?

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link

IMUS: Well, [Alan Murray's] question seems plain. "Do we have any idea how widely known it was in Washington that Joe Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. And you said that his wife worked . . .

MITCHELL: When you look at my answer, I said: "It was widely known - and we were trying to track down who among the foreign community was the envoy to Niger." So far, so good. Okay? [Quoting herself again.] "So some of us began to pick up on that. But frankly I wasn't aware of her actual role at the CIA and the fact the she had a covert role involving weapons of mass destruction, not until Bob Novak wrote it.

IMUS: Well, that part is clear.

MITCHELL: That's clear. So, what's not clear is that I didn't know about her role at the CIA until Bob Novak wrote it. And I obviously got it muddled.

IMUS: Well, what this suggests to me is that, you knew she worked at the CIA but you didn't know what she did there.

MITCHELL: Yes, but that's not . . .

IMUS: Is that fair? Did you know that?

MITCHELL: I didn't.

Andrea Mitchell's I 'Messed Up' on Leakgate Answer .

--snip--

IMUS: Well, then - why did you say you did, Andrea?

MITCHELL: Because, I messed up.

IMUS: Oh.

--snip--

IMUS: Did you ever have a discussion with Russert about it?

MITCHELL: Sure, after the fact.

IMUS: Oh.

I messed up

,,,,,,,,,,, ,,Houston....I think we've got a problem

[johnny7]

Mitchell was obviously left out of the Cooper/Miller/Russert loop... and blurted it out before catching on from the tone/direction of Imus's questioning.

Fitzgerald's investigation was only focused on the charges leveled at the administration... it never strayed even when the red-flags went up. The MSM/DNC learned a lot following the RATher/Mapes/Burkett fiasco.

[Kenny Bunk]

johnny, Imus is a maroon. These high-falutin' leftists, most of whom finished high school and did not destroy their brains with cocaine and vodka play this occasionally personable ignorant chump like a violin.

He craves their acceptance. He wants to be "one of them." He raves on and on about Esther "Lobster" Newberg, but never asks her anything about Chappaquiddick, of which she was a key witness and about which she probably commited perjury

[johnny7]

I know he's a maroon... a DNC/pMSNBC kiss-a$$... but he happened to ask the right question at the right time to Mitchell. With his minuscule audience... it was lucky that Mitchell's gaffe was picked up at all.

[griswold3]

"Most of the trouble we have seen starts and stops with these types, and the Wilson/Plame couple are at the top of the list."
Point being, who are Wilson/Plame's accomplices? I want an investigation.