Astute reader Ted just alerted to what appears to be a lie from either Novak or Rove.
Today's big story is that Rove supposedly never gave Valerie Plame's name to Novak - but rather that Novak mentioned Plame was CIA and Rove said "yeah I heard that too," or something to that effect.
In fact, here's what Novak said in his first interview that we know of just after he leaked Plame's name in print:
Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."Read that again. I didn't dig it out, it was given to me - they gave me the name. That does not jibe with Rove's anonymous buddy telling the NYT that it was Novak who first brought up Plame as CIA and NOT Rove.
Not that any of this matters. Rove confirmed the identity of a CIA agent to Novak, he affirmatively outed that agent to TIME, and then he and the White House lied about it to the media and the American public for two years. But it is interesting to note that this new story from Rove's handlers totally contradicts what Novak himself said two years ago.
So who's lying - Novak or Rove?
PS Another possibility is that Rove wasn't one of the "two administration officials" who told Novak about Plame. In that case, we've got two more, and not one more, Bush administration traitor on the loose.
