Novak Skates While Reporters Sweat
Robert Novak often has said and done outrageous things and gotten away with them.
According to a profile by Barbara Matusow in the June 2003 Washingtonian, Novak issued an implicitly racist comment about Marion Barry; blamed Israel for the 9/11 attacks; and said on CNN's The Capital Gang that his Thanksgiving dinner had been ruined by the sight of so many homeless people shown on TV that day.
Novak said through a spokesman that he stood by his portrayal in the article.
But should Novak take responsibility for writing a column based on anonymous sources that could send two journalists to jail and have the effect of eroding reporters' right to protect sources?
It was Novak who disclosed in a July 14, 2003, column that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent. Novak attributed the assertion to "two senior administration officials." It's a felony for any government to knowingly disclose the name of any undercover CIA operative. The Justice Department appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the leak.
Two journalists subpoenaed in the matter-Matthew Cooper of Time and Judith Miller of the New York Times-have refused to disclose their anonymous sources. Miller never even wrote about Plame. A federal judge has held them in contempt. This week a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court heard arguments as to why, based on the First Amendment, they should not be jailed.
Novak has refused to comment. Has he been questioned by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald? If so, has he talked? His office tells me he declines to comment "on advice of counsel."
In essence, Novak is hiding behind the same excuse used by government officials awaiting indictment and crooked CEOs.
Few in the media have asked why Novak should skate while his brethren suffer.
"There is something wrong with Novak continuing with business as usual while he's causing problems for journalists and journalism," says Rem Rieder, editor of American Journalism Review. "He's put a lot of people in a difficult situation. There's a sense of something wrong for him to stay above the fray, when someone who didn't even write about it faces going to jail."
Let's review the situation. The government dispatched Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, to Africa to see whether Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium from Niger. Wilson reported that such a transaction was highly unlikely, yet President Bush and top officials repeated the claim. The actual facts are still in dispute.
The Bush administration was furious at Wilson. To discredit him, the "two senior administration officials" leaked Plame's identity to Robert Novak. They used Novak as a blunt instrument.
Leaks come in various forms. The most righteous leak is one that puts the leaker in danger for disclosing some truly egregious government action. Deep Throat performed that role in speaking to Bob Woodward for his and Carl Bernstein's Watergate stories. He deserves protection at any cost. The lowest form of leaker is one who drops a dime on someone for political retribution. Whoever leaked to Novak performed that role.
Novak is complicit in that transaction.
"Novak was in a way kind of a transmission belt for the leakers, basically repeating their smears," Matt Cooper says in an interview taped for a CNN "Reliable Sources" segment to be aired Sunday.
Being on the edgy side of journalism has been fruitful for Novak.
He came to Washington in the late 1950s and covered Congress for the AP and then the Wall Street Journal, according to Matusow's profile. He joined with the late Rowland Evans to write a syndicated column in 1963.
"Sometimes the pair inflated their scoops; Novak still does," Matusow wrote. Their column, Evans and Novak, was referred to in some circles as "Errors and No Facts."
Novak took his brand of brash reporting and confrontational journalism to TV in 1982 on The McLaughlin Group. When Novak left the show, CNN gave him his own venue with The Capital Gang, "where he perfected his misanthropic persona," Matusow wrote.
Novak always favored Republicans. He described himself early on as a moderate Rockefeller Republican. But he drifted to the right, especially during the Reagan years. After Evans's death, Novak moved farther right, using his column-syndicated to more than 300 newspapers-to espouse conservative causes and allowing conservative causes to use him.
Raised as a Jew, Novak converted to Catholicism in 1998. The ceremony at St. Patrick's Catholic Church was attended by many members of Washington's media elite, including Al Hunt, Judy Woodruff, Fred Barnes, and Margaret Carlson.
"His privileged position would count for nothing if his peers and colleagues held him accountable," writes Amy Sullivan in the December issue of the Washington Monthly.
While Matt Cooper and Judith Miller seek protection through the First Amendment, Novak benefits from the protection of his friends in the media. He is a star of the annual Gridiron Club show, Washington's fraternity of the media elite. It makes him almost immune from criticism-or from pressure to take responsibility for his Plame column.
The federal courts are in motion, and they will decide the fate of Cooper and Miller. By a far different measure of justice, Robert Novak may be guilty of setting in motion a process that endangers two journalists and the practice of journalism for purely political purposes.
-HARRY JAFFE