Novak Says Bother Bush, Not Me, About Plame Leak

Posted Wednesday, December 14, 2005 12:00 am

By: E&P Staff Robert Novak said Tuesday that people should "bug" President Bush rather than journalists about who outed now-former CIA operative Valerie Plame, according to a Wednesday story in The News & Observer of Raleigh.

"I'm confident the president knows who the source is. I'd be amazed if he doesn't," said Novak, the Chicago Sun-Times/Creators Syndicate columnist who published Plame's name in 2003. "So I say, 'Don't bug me. Don't bug Bob Woodward. Bug the president as to whether he should reveal who the source is.' "

Novak -- speaking during a luncheon at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh -- added that his role in the Plame affair "snowballed out of proportion" as a result of a "campaign by the left." But the conservative commentator also blamed "extremely bad management of the issue by the White House. Once you give an issue to a special prosecutor, you lose control of it."

The report of Novak's remarks was part of a longer News & Observer article by staff writers Rob Christensen, Barbara Barrett, Jane Stancill, and Dan Kane.

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Novak Says Bother Bush, Not Me, About Plame Leak

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