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Robert Novak: Wuss

4 August 2005 - gk - reactions

"Journalist" Robert Novak, who outed covert CIA operative Valerie Plame two years ago, lost it on the set of CNN today. There wasn't any sort of brash fireworks, but Josh Marshall is reporting that Novak was going to be asked about Valerie Plame later in the segment, so this smells like herring to us. In fact, later on the segment the host apologized:

I had told him in advance that we were going to ask him about the CIA leak case. He was not here for me to be able to ask him about that. Hopefully, we'll be able to ask him about that in the future.

If the esteemed reporter couldn't handle some light jousting by James Carville - much lighter than Novak himself dishes out - then what the crap is he doing on the air?

Are we going to have to invoke the, Can dish it out, but not take it rule? Or was this a convenient, if unprofessional, way out of some touchy questions?

... Late update
If we were playing Clue, we would never have guessed that it could have been Mr. Carville with the Who's Who of Washington on the Desk which spooked Novak. Just look at the picture aboe: that huge brown book. a reader of Josh Marshall has an interesting theory:

I recently read Wilson's entry in Who's Who myself, and I can confirm that indeed "Valerie Elise Plame" is named as Joseph Wilson's wife. However, it's important to note that naming wives by their maiden names seems to be standard practice for the book -- Wilson's previous wife is listed by her maiden name, for just one example. This indicates one of two things is likely true:

1) The book is where Novak got her name, and he committed one of the sloppiest and laziest acts of journalism in recent history by not realizing that the book's standard practice list wives by their maiden names or

2) Novak knew that was the standard practice for Who's Who, so once he realized that his source identified Valerie Wilson by her maiden and cover name, he turned to a publicly available source that would naturally list her by that maiden name as "proof" that her cover name was widely known. To me, the second situation seems somewhat more likely. After all, if the book was his actual source for the name and he was interested in protecting the source who told him "Wilson's wife" worked for the CIA, then he would logically have said outright that he got the name from the book. However, Novak has never said the Who's Who guide is where he got the name, just that others could find it there.

Perhaps everyone should be carrying a Who's Who around when Novak is speaking in public.