I can see I'm jumping into a shark tank; just know that I'm fresh to this forum.
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Bob Beckel seems like a nice guy, but we don't klnow what his level of involvement is in this situation. Until we do, he's opinion carries no more weight than mine or yours.
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Well concluded.
Anyway. Novak's rebuttal to the allegations against him is filled with gaps. According to Novak, the official dropped the fact that Plame was employed by the CIA. Novak also defended that he only stated that Wilson's wife was an analyst, not a covert operative. I was curious, however, about Mrs. Plame funding of Al Gore in 1999 through her fake firm, Brewster Jennings & Associates. Novak claimed that...
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CIA people are not supposed to list themselves with fictitious firms if they're under a deep cover — they're supposed to be real firms, or so I'm told.
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...which still seems a shallow defense for the possibility of blowing her cover.
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Novak
I was curious why a high-ranking official in President Bill Clinton's National Security Council (NSC) was given this assignment. Wilson had become a vocal opponent of President Bush's policies in Iraq after contributing to Al Gore in the last election cycle and John Kerry in this one ... During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counter-proliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife
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Its my understanding that a "noc" is classified and maintained in a secrecy unrivaled by any other covert status in the CIA. It is the most difficult cover to make. So why does it seem like it was easy for Novak to find discrepancies in her cover?
There is also the matter of this "senior administration official." If Novak claims to be innocent, then why not reveal the identity of this person? In an August 27, 2006 appearance on Meet the Press, Novak was asked if Armitage was his source. To which Novak responded:
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I told Mr. Isikoff...that I do not identify my sources on any subject if they’re on a confidential basis until they identify themselves...I’m going to say one thing, though, I haven’t said before. And that is that I believe that the time has way passed for my source to identify himself."
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I know Novak said he prefered his source to identify himself, but when should it become apparent that this source would prefer to keep the investigation and media running in circles, rather than sabotage his own career?
Sources: Novak, Robert (October 1, 2003). "The CIA leak", www.usatoday.com/news/pdf/plame_lawsuit.pdf, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plame_Affair