“Leak to me, baby! I don’t bite the hand that feeds me,” I once heard him gleefully say into the phone.
Don’t confuse integrity with self-serving mercenary ambition. Novak had the latter, in spades; not so much the former.
Novak didn’t care about the truth and didn’t care who paid the price in the Plame affair. Apparently his secret weapon rusted sometime before then. Or ran short of ammo.