Columnist Robert Novak has made a career for himself as a human flamethrower for conservative causes. Yet, even Novak appears surprised at the mounting cost of his disclosure in 2003 of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame.
It was classic Novak: a hatchet job directed not at Plame, but at her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. The firestorm that erupted has consumed millions of dollars in investigation and litigation costs and has wreaked havoc with the career not just of Plame (who had to leave the CIA) but of two reporters who were hauled into court and threatened with prison.
Novak's original intention, it seems, was to publicly damage Wilson, who had embarrassed President Bush by showing that he relied on false information to justify the Iraq war. Although Novak admits that he was asked not to publish Plame's name by a CIA official, he insists that he did not realize that he might be putting her in danger. Nevertheless, he showed little concern for safety or propriety until after the controversy erupted.
It is a far cry from the first recorded fight over anonymous sources: In 1848, New York Herald reporter John Nugent refused to give up his source for a copy of the secret Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo that ended the Mexican-American War.
It goes without saying that Novak is no Nugent. After all, Nugent's source was a government official who revealed the controversial elements of a secret treaty. (Many still believe that the leaker was James Buchanan, the secretary of State and future president.) Conversely, Novak's piece was based on dirt received from anonymous government officials seeking to discredit a whistle-blower.
Novak insists that he was merely publishing a newsworthy tip from "two senior administration officials;" he suggests that it was important to point out that Wilson's wife was a CIA agent in order to explain why Wilson had been sent on a mission to Niger by the Bush administration. But whatever the value of this information, Novak could have ended it there. Instead, he chose to name Wilson's wife.
The disclosure of the name -- in addition to violating the law against revealing the names of covert personnel -- served no apparent purpose beyond that of retaliation.
