Bob Novak Owes Karl Rove and President Bush an Explanation and an Apology

PINE BLUFFS - Personally I’m sorry to see Karl Rove leave the Bush Administration. Certainly Mr. Bush, who Rove served well since their time together in Texas prior to 2001, feels that way, too. But in the Valerie Plame Wilson matter, Bob Novak did a disservice to the President and Mr. Rove.

The hullabaloo over release of Mr. Novak’s memoirs has obscured a troubling question about his role in the Plame leak case: why didn't Novak immediately issue a statement that Karl Rove was NOT his source?

Am I the only one asking? Although Novak knew the primary source of the alleged leak to be Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, he waited almost three years before speaking out. His failure to do so earlier is puzzling, as is his reference in his "outing" column to having had conversations with "two senior White House officials." Surely he knew that such a remark would unleash the liberal media and Democrats in Congress and elsewhere on a "witch hunt" seeking the identity of those two. Perhaps that’s exactly what he wanted ̶ a payback of sorts to Mr. Bush for a failure to provide him with a “scoop” on something or other, to which he thought he might be entitled.

Meanwhile, during that three year interval, Bush and Rove were subjected to relentless attacks from the Left. Forced to defend himself against unfounded accusations that he was the source of the leak, Rove was required to hire a lawyer at great personal expense, and waste his time and energy parading to the Courthouse to answer Grand Jury questions put to him by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, and telling the same story: "I did not out Valerie Plame. There was no plot by the President to hurt Joe Wilson."

Later, Fitzgerald admitted he had no evidence linking Rove to the leak. After his infamous press conference at which he announced that no indictment would be forthcoming against Rove, groans of disappointment from the Left were audible.

And President Bush? He was accused by the liberal media (David Corn of The Nation Magazine was only one of many) of masterminding a plot to "out" Joseph Wilson's wife to "get even" with Wilson for his 2002 report for the CIA debunking intelligence that Iraq tried to buy uranium in Africa. The liberal media also gave wide coverage to a Senate speech by Harry Reid (D-NV) placing this sampling of left-wing paranoia on the public record. Mr. Bush was also mercilessly slandered by Democrats for a "lack of moral values" and "lack of integrity." Talk about the proverbial pot calling the kettle black!

Although Democrats continued publicly to parrot that the whole thing MUST have been a Republican plot, their sleazy house of cards completely collapsed around their ears in September 2006, when former Deputy Secretary of State Armitage confessed publicly that HE had revealed Plame's identity to Novak. That was followed a week later by a "clarification" column from Novak, which, although welcome, did not explain why he himself had not stepped forward earlier with a statement that Rove had NOT been his source.

A year ago I wrote in one of my columns: "Meanwhile, don't hold your breath waiting for an apology from liberal Democrats, commentators, and journalists to President Bush, Karl Rove, and the public for this partisan ploy, which was at the least an expensive distraction from the people's bona fide business." (See My Turn to Sound Off: Being a Liberal Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry! Anthony J. Sacco, Sr., www.saccoservices.com, October 2006. Now however, it appears that the above-named groups are not the only ones who owe apologies. Novak's explanation for why he kept silent and his apology for the harm his silence caused are long overdue.