Posted on 08/18/2009 12:55:46 PM PDT by InvisibleChurch
NEW YORK A lengthy Q and A with the ailing columnist Robert Novak-- who died today at age 78-- appeared last November in the Washingtonian. At the end, Barbara Matusow got around to asking about the CIA leak case and outed spy Valerie Plame Wilson.
Novak replied: "From a personal point of view, I said in the book I probably should have ignored what Id been told about Mrs. Wilson.
"Now Im much less ambivalent. Id go full speed ahead because of the hateful and beastly way in which my left-wing critics in the press and Congress tried to make a political affair out of it and tried to ruin me. My response now is this: The hell with you. They didnt ruin me. I have my faith, my family, and a good life. A lot of people love meor like me.
"So they failed. I would do the same thing over again because I dont think I hurt Valerie Plame whatsoever."
I loved you, Bob, so I agree: “The Hell with them.”
“George Bush was the President and would have had NO problem defending himself if he had chosen to do so.
Ever. Even once.”
Amen!
So, Libby is a convicted felon, for what? For having a different memory of two conversations with reporters five years after the fact. This was a travesty, and Bush's unwillingness to set it right with a full pardon shows his weakness quite clearly.
Amen. He capitulated to a DEM call for a special prosecutor, which itself lent "heft" to the false charge that an outing had occurred. Libby lied his ass off to investigators, and got burned. All Libby had to do to avoid prosecution was admit he knew (from the CIA) that Plame worked for the CIA, and that he told/confirmed that to Miller and Cooper.
As it is, some DEMs, to this day, assert that Plame was covert, that Cheney damaged a CIA asset, etc.
Basically for claiming, in the context of an investigation about who know Mrs. Wilson worked at the CIA, he was damn sure he never contacted the CIA about whether or not Mrs. Wilson worked at the CIA.
GWB believed in the law. Libby doing time would have been the travesty, and Bush prevented that while still respecting the court system. Bush did the same with all his pardons and commutations. Weakness had nothing to do with it.
It was up to Libby to clear his name, something he decided not to do.
If anybody screwed Scooter, it was W.
That's his own damn fault. He should have pardoned Libby or fired Fitzpatrick.
I like Novak. Good man.
>> Fitz is a talented, ruthless and unscrupulous prosecutor
Talented and ruthless, eh?
And that explains the great strides he has made in his prosecution of Rod Blagojevich just how?
No, my take on Fitzgerald is, he is JUST like Eliot Spitzer — an egomaniac, a force to be reckoned with, a fire breather, but *only* until someone with guts stands up to him. The rest is pure PR (with the help of a complicit press) and intimidation with no substance or gravitas behind it.
Sadly, Robert Novak was not the man to stand up to Fitzgerald, although he could have been. I understand, but I sure don’t respect him for it.
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