Indict Novak Now

Professional chuzzlewits like Marty Peretz are spinning Novak's recent column on Dick Armitage as vindication for the soon to be convicted Scooter Libby.

Smarter and saner people know that Novak is full of shit. As swopa points out at firedoglake, Novak's previous claim that his source's revelation of Plame's covert status was "offhand" cannot be squared with his current claim that Armitage went into great detail and wanted the information to be published by Novak. Novak now asserts:

First, Armitage did not, as he now indicates, merely pass on something he had heard and that he "thought" might be so. Rather, he identified to me the CIA division where Mrs. Wilson worked, and said flatly that she recommended the mission to Niger by her husband, former Amb. Joseph Wilson.

Second, Armitage did not slip me this information as idle chitchat, as he now suggests. He made clear he considered it especially suited for my column.

Was Novak lying then or is he lying now?

Here's another Novak quote, from a July 2006 column:

In my sworn testimony, I said what I have contended in my columns and on television: Joe Wilson's wife's role in instituting her husband's mission was revealed to me in the middle of a long interview with an official who I have previously said was not a political gunslinger. After the federal investigation was announced, he told me through a third party that the disclosure was inadvertent on his part.

Novak now claims that Armitage was angling to get Plame's name and status into Novak's column, and that he (Novak) knew it from start. Yet he told his readers that the disclosure was inadvertent, instead of telling them it was intentional. (Whether Armitage claimed it was inadvertent is irrelevant if Novak knew it was not.)

And Novak is apparently claiming that he told the same lie in his sworn testimony. If there's any justice, Novak may see the inside of a cell along with Scooter Libby.

More likely, Novak will just get more face time on Meet the Press and continued love from the corrupt pundit corps. And no one -- no one -- from the pundit corps will call him on this.