Novak wrote that Harlow's "allegation against me is
so patently incorrect and so abuses my integrity as a journalist that I
feel constrained to reply."
Right-wing
columnist Robert Novak's new attack on former Ambassador Joseph Wilson --
that he was "discarded a year ago by the Kerry presidential campaign" --
recycled a disputed report from Talon News correspondent Jeff Gannon,
who was unmasked earlier this year as a pro-Republican operative working
under an assumed name.
In an Aug. 1 column, Novak cited the Kerry
campaign's supposed rejection of Wilson to further denigrate the former
ambassador, who has become a bete noire to Republicans since he
charged in an opinion article on July 6, 2003, that the Bush
administration "twisted" intelligence on Iraq’s nuclear weapons program.
Eight days later, on July 14, 2003, Novak exposed
the fact that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, worked at the Central
Intelligence Agency, an outing of a covert officer that has sparked a
two-year investigation into whether Bush administration officials
violated legal prohibitions against disclosing the identity of a CIA
officer.
Novak has refused publicly to answer questions
about his role in the case -- including what he may have told a federal
grand jury about his administration sources -- but he penned the Aug. 1
column to challenge former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow for claiming that
he warned Novak about the potential danger in naming Plame.
Assault on Wilson
Novak's column also resumed the Right's
long-running assault on Wilson's credibility. Near the end of the
column, Novak wrote that "Joseph Wilson was discarded a year ago by the
Kerry presidential campaign after the Senate [intelligence] committee
reported that much of what he [Wilson] said 'had no basis in fact.'"
However, Novak’s sentence appears to be wrong on
both its points. The Senate Intelligence Committee did not conclude that
Wilson’s statements about the Iraqi intelligence "had no basis in fact."
That was a phrase that Novak culled from "additional views" of three
Republican senators.
The full committee refused to accept that opinion
written by Sen. Pat Roberts and backed by two other conservative
Republicans -- Christopher Bond and Orrin Hatch -- yet Novak left the
impression that the phrase was part of what he called "a unanimous
Senate intelligence committee report" released in July 2004.
The other part of Novak’s attack on Wilson -- about
his supposed repudiation by Sen. John Kerry's Democratic campaign -- can
be traced back to a story by Talon News' former White House
correspondent Jeff Gannon, whose real name is James Guckert.
On July 27, 2004, just over a year ago, a Talon News story under
Gannon's byline reported that Wilson "has apparently been jettisoned
from the Kerry campaign." The article based its assumption on the fact
that "all traces" of Wilson "had disappeared from the Kerry Web site."
The Talon News article reported that "Wilson had appeared on a Web
site www.restorehonesty.com where he restated his criticism of the Bush
administration. The link now goes directly to the main page of
www.johnkerry.com and no reference to Wilson can be found on the entire
site."
A Web Redesign
But Peter Daou, who headed the Kerry campaign's online rapid
response, said the disappearance of Wilson's link -- along with many
other Web pages -- resulted from a redesign of Kerry's Web site at the
start of the general election campaign, not a repudiation of Wilson.
"I wasn't aware of any directive from senior Kerry staff to 'discard'
Joe Wilson or do anything to Joe Wilson for that matter," said Daou, who
now publishes the "Daou Report" at Salon.com. "It just got lost in the
redesign of the Web site, as did dozens and dozens of other pages."
Gannon/Guckert, who wrote frequently
about the Wilson-Plame case in 2003-2004, came under suspicion as a
covert Republican operative in January 2005 when he put a question to
George W. Bush at a presidential news conference that contained a false
assertion about Democrats and prompted concerns that Gannon/Guckert was
a plant.
Later, liberal Web sites discovered that
Gannon was a pseudonym for Guckert, who had posted nude photos of
himself on gay-male escort sites. It also turned out that Talon News was
owned by GOPUSA, whose president Robert Eberle is a prominent Texas
Republican activist.
Though Gannon/Guckert had been refused a
congressional press pass, he secured daily passes to the White House
press briefing under his real name, Guckert. As a controversy built over
the Bush administration paying for favorable news stories, Gannon/Guckert
resigned from Talon News on Feb. 8 and its Web site effectively shut
down.
However, a copy of the Talon News article
about Wilson and his supposed rejection by the Kerry campaign remains on
the Internet at
FreeRepublic.com.
Besides taking swipes at Wilson, Novak's Aug. 1
column lambasted supposed "misinformation" from former CIA spokesman
Harlow.
Novak wrote that Harlow's "allegation against me is
so patently incorrect and so abuses my integrity as a journalist that I
feel constrained to reply." But Novak's complaint against Harlow looks
like a classic case of splitting hairs.
Novak notes that Harlow told the Washington Post
that Plame, who worked as a CIA officer on weapons of mass destruction,
"had not authorized" sending her husband on a mission to Niger to
investigate suspicions that Iraq was trying to buy processed uranium,
called yellowcake. Novak said he never wrote that Plame "authorized" the
trip, but only that she "suggested" it.
The next time Robert Novak decides to use "Fake News" for the sake of his integrity, he should stick to the "Daily Show", because Jon Stewart is more accurate than Jeff Gannon and the stories are funnier.
08/04/05 UPDATE: Novak Freaks on the CNN Set! As has been reported, Robert Novak stormed off the set
of " Inside Politics" today during a session with James Carville while
they were talking about Katherine Harris. (Was it the make-up!) He yelled " This is bullshit" and walked off the set
after Carville did his usual ribbing of Novakula. Do you think the
Valerie Plame affair is stressing out Bob? James didn't even give it to
him like he usually does.
08/05/05 UPDATE: When will Accuracy in Media et al., or whatever other group Brent Bozell uses these days, start piping in the calls to the FCC demanding a fine for Novak for saying "bullshit on-air". (ed.note:
Yes, obviously, the FCC has no authority to levy a fine since CNN is
cable TV. But can't Brent Bozell still stomp up and down and say
something terrible has to happen to him?) Novak agrees to "take some time off" from CNN.
Does this mean that MSNBC will give Novak his own show?
Right-wing
columnist Robert Novak's new attack on former Ambassador Joseph Wilson --
that he was "discarded a year ago by the Kerry presidential campaign" --
recycled a disputed report from Talon News correspondent Jeff Gannon,
who was unmasked earlier this year as a pro-Republican operative working
under an assumed name.
