Editorial -

Novak Shills For Bush
And Gets Well Protected

Conservatives and reactionaries have for years gotten some of their most valuable information from columnist Robert Novak. He delves behind headlines, sheds new light on subjects, and puts matters into a conservative context. Many old-line conservatives and some of the new radical-right see him as a hero.

But Novak recently peeled away his thin veneer of civility in the middle of a broadcast on national television and showed all the viewers his true strength – bile. It didn’t even take all that much to make Novak shed his cloak of gentility and reveal the raw crudeness beneath so much of conservative thought and right-wing activism.

Novak’s remark was much in the mode of Vice President Richard ‘Dick’ Cheney, who when fulfilling his role in Congress was confronted by Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont; Vice President Cheney sneered and said aloud that the Vermont senator could simply "go fuck himself."

Not a proud day for American government, but a solid indication of what lies beneath the veneer of the radical conservatives now running the GOP. And somehow that flagrant, crude and vulgar remark didn’t offend the sensibilities of the evangelistic followers of Mr. Cheney and his leader, George W. Bush. Dick Cheney was even commended for candor and directness by a number of right-wing pundits, and supported by true believers using radio call-in shows to express themselves.

Apparently anything goes so long as it supports the right-wing standpoint.

In Novak’s case, he was on a CNN set doing an interview on a number of subjects. He’s an experienced journalist, therefore it’s reasonable to conclude he might well expect that the moderator, Ed Henry, might ask about Novak’s latest big scoop, the one in which he outed Central Intelligence Agency operative Valerie Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson.

Wilson had become something of an inadvertent critic of the conservative – no, the right-wing – administration of George W. Bush. He was supposed to find evidence of nuclear sales between Iraq and the African nation of Niger. He didn’t. He found nothing.

It was hoped his report would find a link and lend truth to Bush’s January 2003 State of the Union address in which he mentioned the nonexistent transaction. In the end, Bush looked like a fool; this was, of course, the position in which he had put himself.

There he was, explaining the need for war with a wall of fictitious evidence, and he was caught red handed. Lord that must have steamed George W, who is famous for his temper, as well as the handlers around him.

So Wilson needed to be cut off and removed, like an infection, from the Republican body politic.

What better way to doubly screw former Ambassador Wilson than to take both him and his CIA agent wife out of national and international affairs, all with one swipe. The methodology, in turned out, was in the hands of the top Bush Administration people; they had a simple way to send both Wilson and Plame down in flames. The ammunition was information. All that was required was the callousness, and arrogant bureaucratic fearlessness, to reveal her publicly as a government agent and ruin her career.

Oh, the tingling satisfaction that might provide!

Novak was the perfect cannon for that particular informational ammunition.

He was conservative, closely connected with Bush’s White House and probably just as livid at Wilson as were the elected and appointed officials themselves. No one could at that point say Novak was simply a spigot for behind the scenes dirt, a mere conductor of the Administration’s guided viewpoints. After all, he was a hero, a battler.

Novak could never be considered Bush’s press secretary in disguise – or could he? Unfortunately, he clearly could.

Oh there was probably no clandestine agreement that turned Novak into the Bush spokesman in charge of vengeance. It was just that he sort of fell into it, by predilection and disposition. All he needed was the ammo.

To be effective in countering Wilson’s inability to find proof of Saddam Hussein’s attempt to build a nuclear bomb, Wilson needed to be discredited quickly. That meant that somebody had to suggest and imply that Plame and Wilson were villains involved in a wider conspiracy, perhaps orchestrated by clandestine elements of the government who were opposed to the Bush policies. And this scenario needed to be disseminated fast.

So the secret identity of Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, got passed to Novak and he blabbed it to the world. But once he named Plame as a CIA agent, and began to take fire for revealing secret, classified government information that bore felony penalties, Novak said he had no idea it would mean any danger to anyone involved. This of course was the height of disingenuousness.

Novak has been in the news business throughout his professional life; such an assertion is a bald-faced lie.

More bluntly, to repeat his recent televised crudity, it was "bullshit."

No journalist, editorial writer or columnist covering the inner workings of government could possibly fail to recognize that Novak was putting Plame in immediate peril, along with everybody she knew who might be an agent, as well as her contacts and anyone she might have recruited or even worked with in the past.

This was a monstrosity, a knowing and calculated attempt by people in the Bush Administration to accomplish a political goal regardless of the consequences to other Americans, the nation’s allies, or to the country as a whole. It was, in short, treasonous.

The act of revealing the information and the act of conveying it was criminal and it endangered CIA operations and American security.

To claim no knowledge of what he had done belies everything for which Novak supposedly stands; he knew.

And now, in the recent CNN show, moderator Ed Henry was plainly going to ask Novak about it. The situation was spiced by a currently typical journalistic device; that is, using guests in a point-counterpoint relationship, which of course takes much of the onus off the principal of the show, in this case Mr. Henry, allowing him to act more or less like a moderator instead of a journalistic inquisitor.

The third person in this CNN show was Democrat James Carville. He is a snake-like combatant who would love to have a knock-down battle over anything, anything at all. He can be as partisan a Democrat as Novak is a dedicated Republican. So Novak knew he was in for a fight when the Plame/Wilson case hit the floor.

Maybe that was the problem.

Novak claimed that his reason for breezing away from the table as the discussion heated up was about something completely divorced from the Plame/Wilson case. That’s hard to believe, but perhaps Novak might like to illuminate that point. Then again, it may make no difference. Why he walked out just before the tough topic speaks for itself.

Novak does not want to talk about it. "This is bullshit," he declared as he left.

All of this means one of two things; or possibly both.

One: he’s afraid of going to jail, which a New York Times reporter is doing right now because she refused to reveal her sources regarding the Plame story, even though she never wrote or published a word about the story. Novak broke the story, but he is free. Novak uses the law to hide the truth, she used it to get at the truth and got imprisoned.

Two: Novak is afraid of inadvertently letting something sticky get out, which could eventually be put on the doorstep of some high official in the Bush Administration. The primary candidate in that scenario is the key Bush advisor, Karl Rove.*

So Novak has said nothing in public, outside of a few fleeting mentions in his column. But he sits on panels like this CNN one all the time. That is one of his jobs. And while he is sitting there as a spokesman for conservatism and a man of words, he is supposed to discuss the news of the day.

This is prime-time television news; it’s supposed to be journalism. Novak knows his most controversial issue will come up. Anyone taking the time to watch such a news program would not give a nickel for any moderator who refused to even bring up the topic. The criticism would be instantaneous and the moderator, whomever he or she was, would likely be summarily fired, since after all audience input and ratings are supreme.

So the subject was going to be aired. But Novak deflected it by stalking off, calling it "bullshit" and acting offended. Unfortunately, and perhaps not unexpectedly, moderator Henry said nothing when Novak stood up, took off his microphone and left.

There was no mention of the dramatic event, no explanation or commentary, nothing. One minute there were two major journalistic and political figures – Novak and Carville - fighting their way through intellectual arguments, and the next minute there was just one combatant left.

The fact that Ed Henry let a major breaking story walk away and then act as if nothing had happened was saddening. It meant that a veteran, seasoned, tuned-in moderator who is supposedly, at the least, acting as a referee for these two lions of the airwaves, is thunderstruck when news happens. Or perhaps he was ordered to do nothing if this happened. Thank goodness it was television.

Had it been radio it would have been completely inexplicable; no one would have seen Novak abruptly jump up and stalk away, all they would have heard was his caustic utterance, "this is bullshit," and then silence from that microphone.

Now CNN has told Novak to take a walk; they’ll let him know when he can come back. Joy, joy; Novak is now kept off the air because of a decision made by the airwave managers; the public still, supposedly, owns the airwaves. Novak didn’t really have to do much to make this happen; just walk off a show without ever facing the biggest question he has been consistently ducking. So he handled it perfectly.

Sorry, really, but it seems the television people don’t want Novak for a while, therefore he will not have to do a thing to avoid controversy. He apologized, somewhat, and left television, no longer burdened with being asked for his story. But this is not a penalty; he is being freed from scrutiny. And when everything has blown over, he’ll be invited back. So just what are the CNN owners and directors revealing?

And is Novak a newsman? Hardly.

Novak is a Bush shill, and he is being well protected.