NOVAK: 'NOBODY IN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION CALLED ME TO LEAK THIS'

Drudge Report ^ | 09/29/03

[Pokey78]

In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador Wilson's report when he told the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction. Another senior official told me the same thing. As a professional journalist with 46 years experience in Washington I do not reveal confidential sources. When I called the CIA in July to confirm Mrs. Wilson's involvement in the mission for her husband -- he is a former Clitnon administration official -- they asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else. According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of an undercover operatives...

[woodyinscc]

Matthews has got his talking point orders, makes no mention of Novak's statements, and Fineman is still his lackey!! The rat press just makes me want to throw up. They have the same information we do, this just proves their complicity!

[NYC Republican]

Wilson is going to regret he ever brought this up...

With any luck, so will the Dems...

[MasonGal]

Why am I not surprised?

[Dog]

Wilson gave money to the Kerry campaign........LOL!

[M. Thatcher]

I've never seen the liberal media this rabid.

I must be a lot older than you. I remember the Reagan years. It was worse.

[cars for sale]

add to that Kristina Van dHuevel or however spelled.......an admitted socialist/marxist...ADMITTED is a Matthews regular....question is ,WHY ?

[NotQuiteCricket]

Novak told Newsday that "two senior administration officials" told him that it was Plame who suggested sending her husband, Wilson, to Niger. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."

Why he named her remains unclear. And whether he knew he was exposing an undercover CIA agent is not clear. Novak declined to be interviewed for this story.

Where is the "Newsday" interview of Novak?
Has anyone put together a chronology of the spinning $h1t that has come out of the left?

[Shermy]

July 14, 2003

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/991641/posts

Note that the article reveals that Novak had spoken to Mr. Wilson.

[prairiebreeze]

I remember the Reagan years. It was worse.

Really? Interesting, and thanks for sharing that perspective.

Prairie

[Porterville]

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA

[Dog]

See post 404....Wilson donated money to the Kerry campaign.

[prairiebreeze]

Aack! I feel like I can't get a handle on this entire story!

Does $1000 contribution mean he gave too much? I guess I figured the guy for a flaming liberal. Am I missing why I should be surprised that he contributed to at least one of the Ten Twits?

Prairie

[Wolfstar]

Thank you for the ping, Grampa Dave. With all respect to each of you, speaking as one who knows the media from the inside, please be VERY skeptical of "leaks" designed only to backfire on the supposed source of the leak.

I have been highly skeptical of this whole Wilson matter from the beginning. Even this morning, when responding to a poster named AnitGuv's dark (and silly) assertions that the CIA had "fired one across the Administration's bow" this weekend, I concluded with the following (at 11:45am PDT):

"However, I don't believe it to be true. Rather, I believe the far simpler and more logical answer is that Wilson, a Dem operative, has cooked up his 'outrage' — and perhaps even the leak, itself (if there really was one) — in order to create a 'scandal' in time to help the Dems in 2004."

Please keep in mind the fact that reporters obtain information in a variety of ways — some above-board, and some not. Except if one of their own editors asks, reporters never have to reveal their sources to anyone. Most of the time, editors don't ask, and this is especially true for their star reporters. It is human nature that, when given such power, some people will abuse it. What this means is that reporters can MAKE UP SOURCES. More often, they combine bits and pieces of information they've obtained from several sources (direct human contact, or print, or broadcast, or what they've managed to see laying on top of someone's desk) and weave them into a STORY — a TALE.

I can't emphasize this enough: The media is in the business of selling advertising. Their stock in trade is a good, juicy STORY — TALE — GOSSIP. All of the hooey about objectivity, and being accurate with facts, and such is just marketing to get the public to trust them far more than they deserve. If the public eats up their stories, they get to charge big bucks for advertising.

As for leaks, some are genuine and intended to provide information to the public in a "soft," indirect way. Common examples: "A source close to the investigation said..." "A senior campaign official said..." Most genuine leaks are of this variety. (Personally, I think leaks of this kind are used all too frequently and unnecessarily.)

Other, less common leaks come from people who genuinely see themselves as whistle blowers or who otherwise believe they are acting in the public interest, but who are afraid of the personal consequences to them if they went public.

The third and fourth categories of leaks are the most insidious and difficult to spot: (a) the type where someone really does leak, but for a malicious purpose, and (b) the type where the report makes up a source as a "vessel" for bits and pieces of info the reporter is weaving into a story. The leaking of Anita Hill's name to the media during the Clarence Thomas hearings was one such example of a malicious leak. So, too, is this Wilson story.

As for the non-existent source and phony facts, we've seen several examples over the years of some reporters getting caught at this — the latest being the Jayson Blair fiasco at the NYT.

So as intelligent consumers of news, I urge each of you to cultivate some healthy skepticism about all news, but most especially the political variety. There are an awful lot of honorable and less-than-honorable people out there with an awful lot of agendas to push.

[Dog]

Up in the thread mewzilla found an article from the BBC and linked to it..... that quotes Wilson and an unnamed CIA offical... it was posted on..

July 9th,2003.......6 days before the Novack article broke.

[Shermy]

re: 443 thank you.

I sense Novak is in cover-his-ass mode too.

[NonValueAdded]

CBS skillfully cut Chuckie's remarks to make it sound like general outrage at a leak, stripping off all the partisan vitriol Chuckie really used.

The real story is that Wilson never adressed the question of Iraq attempting to get yellowcake, he simply said the sale never took place. See post 23 in this thread: 'Based on those conversations, he concluded that "it was highly doubtful that any [sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq] had ever taken place."' WILSON NEVER ADDRESSED THE ATTEMPT TO BUY WHICH IS ALL GWB SAID IN THE SOTU. NO ONE - NOT GWB, NOT BLAIR - SAID THE SALE WAS COMPLETED. THIS WAS B.S. FROM THE GIT-GO.

[Peach]

Ahh - $$ to Kerry.

That's Wilson - always on the losing team.

[Wolfstar]

Re your post #408, you are right. And there isn't any particular truth the Dems want to learn. They just want to damage the one thing about President Bush that the public consistely gives him high ratings for: his honesty and integrity. The Dems want to smear a good man in the middle of a war just to satisfy their lust for power.

[sarasmom]

But chose not to tell us-is IMHO, the operative phrase.
They are obviously no longer reporters,journalists, the press etc.
They are information manipulators.
Now I have no particular problem with information management,the old term.
The major difference is the information I manipulated was was strictly controlled, and any attempt on my part to play games with it in order to slant it to provoke a desired outcome had built in checks and balances, and the penalty for obvious ethical lapses in dealing with it were rather severe.
The "professional media" has no such ethical or legal restraints anymore.
They have, as a group, lost their once widely assumed to be deserving of respect position as professional watchers of the power players.
Professional reporters must either re-embrace their roots, or become irrelevant.
I think it is fairly obvious they will, as a group, choose the latter course.

[Shermy]

Novak says admin officials AND CIA told him about the wife.

Maybe he's making it up. He already knew, wanted to "sex up" his report and make himself seem more important.