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BUMP to this thread in light of today's testimony in Libby trial....... and I found this closing statement from Novak in this still-highly-relevant article to be intriguing (Novak indicating that Corn and Isikoff may owe much more to Pillar than they acknowledge??):

"In their tirade against the Bush White House, Isikoff and Corn found a hero: Paul Pillar, then the CIA officer in charge of the Middle East. During the 2004 election campaign, I wrote in a column that Pillar was delivering off-the-record briefings to citizens groups around the country, and was highly critical of the president seeking a second term. Probing such subversion at the CIA might have been an interesting exercise for an investigative reporter, but that is not what this book is about."

Thanks for the refresher on this thread. Reading it again, I'm struck anew by Corn's selective attitude towards criticism of the CIA: his book on Shackley was devoted to exposing the history of Shackley's operations, but he's upset at Novak for outing a CIA agent. Apparently the CIA is okay with Corn when it's attacking Bush, but when it's fighting Castro he has a problem with it.