Now Valerie Plame's former CIA supervisor, Fred Rustman (who WAS a covert official) has gone on record saying she was not a covert employee...and that virtually everyone in the social circle around her and Wilson knew that she worked at the CIA.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050715-121257-9887r.htm
That Plame was well known in the DC cocktail circuits to be CIA has been well known for YEARS. Just about the first story I ever saw about Plame/Wilson so very long ago made it clear that everyone knew her connections with the agency. Only the Old Media FRAUDcasters have been attempting to keep this fact from the public.
Novak could have gotten her name from many people who had zero "insider information" from my understanding.
Surprising? Not at all, when we recall that WILSON HIMSELF says she revealed herself as CIA agent on one of their first dates!
Valerie was not a person, apparently, who held that information in high confidence.