Who Said What When (Robt. Novak)

WeeklyStandard ^ | 10-16-06 | Robert Novak

[STARWISE]

The publication of Hubris is filled with irony for David Corn, Washington editor of the left-wing Nation magazine. He was present at the creation of the Valerie Plame "scandal," which the enemies of George W. Bush hoped could bring down a president. Nobody was more responsible for bloating this episode. Yet Corn is coauthor of a book that has had the effect of killing the story.

Thanks to Corn's intrepid coauthor, Newsweek investigative reporter Michael Isikoff, Hubris definitively revealed then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage as my source that Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie, worked for the CIA and suggested her husband's mission to Africa.

Armitage, an internal critic of the administration's Iraq policy, did not fit the left's theory of a conspiracy led by Karl Rove and "Scooter" Libby to discredit Wilson as a war critic. Nor did it fit the overriding theme of Isikoff and Corn in depicting "spin, scandal and the selling of the Iraq war."

As a result, Corn has been frantic--in the Nation, on his blog, and all over television--to depict an alternate course in which Rove, Libby, and Vice President Cheney attempted, by design and independently, to do what Armitage purportedly accomplished accidentally.

The introduction of Hubris states that Armitage's statement to me was (according to the deputy secretary's colleagues) "a slip-up by an inveterate gossip--but one that occurred alongside a concerted White House effort to undermine a critic of the war." This, the authors continue, "was a window into a much bigger scandal: the Bush administration's use of faulty intelligence and its fervent desire (after the [Iraq] invasion) to defend its prewar sales pitch."

I can only imagine the debates that must have taken place between coauthors to determine the direction of this book. The resulting product is some of the investigator Isikoff and a lot of the ideologue Corn. Hubris is not an unmitigated apologia for the Wilsons, but it comes close.

This desperate attempt to resuscitate a dubious conspiracy theory falls flat, and undermines what seems to be the real reason for writing Hubris.

While its reportorial tone gives the book a façade of objectivity, in fact it constitutes a broad assault on Bush, his administration, and his policies in the war against terrorism. That entails the retelling of manifold allegations of perfidy, so familiar that they grow tiresome. The book's only new element is what it reveals about the Plame case, and there they trumped their own ace by facilitating the source's exposure in advance of publication.

The book is also exceptional partly because its authors are so oddly matched.

Isikoff, who views himself as nonideological and nonpartisan, led reporters in tracking Bill Clinton's Monica Lewinsky affair (recorded in his Uncovering Clinton).

Corn is a stereotypical leftist activist without a nonideological bone in his body. His first book, Blond Ghost, was a vicious attack on the legendary CIA operative and Cold War hero Theodore Shackley, and the bias of his later work, The Lies of George W. Bush, is obvious from its title.

Corn telephoned me on July 16, 2003, two days after publication of my Valerie Plame column. He was neither a dispassionate reporter seeking information nor a former colleague on CNN's Crossfire, where we maintained a relatively friendly relationship when he was a substitute liberal cohost in 1997-98.

Instead, he was an impassioned, angry activist who accused me of "outing a CIA agent" and breaking the law. Since the Nation had never before been concerned with the protection of intelligence agents, I suspected political motives behind Corn's outrage. It was our final conversation. The last thing Corn wanted from me was additional information.

>>>>>>>>Rest at link.

[Freedom is eternally right]

A former senior producer for NBC News, at one time Levine was senior producer in charge of "Hardball with Chris Matthews." Earlier in his career Levine was a top aide to former U. S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat from New York.

An earlier Novak column about Levine: 2002 Novak Column "The Ralph Reed affair"

[operation clinton cleanup]

BTW, our very own FReeper, eeevil conservative, is ON LIVE RADIO NOW on WGKA Atlanta!

Dang! I cant get the listen now to work with firefox.

[STARWISE]

Try Explorer.

[Howlin]

I am convinced Lehane was the person who "leaked" (and possibly found) the Bush DUI information in 2000.

He and Ben Chao are the lowest of the low.

[Howlin]

And the guy who now has Stephen Jones as an attorney, Edmund, just happens to be at Berkley; Lehane lives in San Francisco now.

To my knowledge, today is the first day Lehane has "surfaced" in this story.

[dirtboy]

Since the Nation had never before been concerned with the protection of intelligence agents, I suspected political motives behind Corn's outrage.

The ultimate observation about the incredible hypocrisy of the left over this. They have no problem with leaking classified programs that are stopping terrorist attacks, but go bonkers over revealing the identity of a partisan CIA agent who isn't even covert and whose husband outed her long ago.

[Howlin]

Whoops.......wrong name. I was still in shock from seeing Chris Lehane on MSNBC just a few minutes ago!

DUH.

[Just mythoughts]

Sorry CORN you did not corn*spire* enough 'sex a *fair*' in your plot to bring down a president.

Novak said from the beginning that his source was NOT from within the White House.... duh Corn.

Maybe when Libby gets finished with his ordeal he can visit you across a legal table.

[cgk]

Dang! I cant get the listen now to work with firefox.

I had that problem all the time as well, and found this nifty extension: IE Tab... it "switches" your browser engine from firefox to IE for purposes like these. Granted, I haven't had 100% success with it, some videos still just won't work, but probably 7 out of 10 do now.

[operation clinton cleanup]

Thanks for the tip, I will try it. I try to avoid using IE as much as possible.

[cgk]

Me too... which is why I didn't mind using that 'rendering engine'... it was like cheating IE from messing with my PC. :). And if it doesn't work for you, firefox extensions are always a hassle-free uninstall.

[STARWISE]

What was Lahane's spin?

[Enchante]

"I suspect DC has had more than one intimate IM conversation with a teenage boy"

and I'm pretty sure David Corn does not limit himself merely to "intimate IM conversation" with his boy-toys.....does he strictly observe the "age of consent" or not?

Anyway, it is long past time to see the lies, biases, distortions, and hypocrisies of leftists like Corn and their MSM buddies thoroughly exposed. I'm glad that Novak is finally bringing out more of the story, but he is still too coy about Corn and the Wilsons -- others need to pick up on this and hammer these scumbags for answers. David Corn laundered the Wilsons' talking points into the public arena (vicious WH conspiracy to "out" Valerie Pflame etc.) and the DBM allowed a far-left charlatan like Corn with an obvious extreme set of biases to set the parameters and tone for literally thousands of MSM articles and TV stories since. It is time to drain this cesspool.....

[operation clinton cleanup]

David Corn has disgusted me for years, and I am no big fan of Isikoff either. Check out Dave's latest brilliant political reporting:

October 06, 2006
From a List to a GOP Civil War?

Copies of The List (see below) have been sent by gay politicos to a variety of social conservative groups that look to the Republican Party to make their religious right dreams come true. The recipients include the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, the Alliance for Marriage, Concerned Women of America, the Eagle Forum, and the Southern Baptist Convention. Officials at most of these groups have had something to say about homosexuality and gay rights in the wake of the Mark Foley scandal.

What's the point? The senders--gay people of a non-Republican bent--seem to be hoping to set off a civil war within the GOP, to turn the anti-gay social cons against the GOP's Velvet Mafia. These Washington gays have been seething for years about gay Republican staffers who serve a party that opposes gay rights and that welcomes the support of people who demonize or dehumanize gays and lesbians. "Maybe now the social conservatives will realize one reason why their agenda is stalled on Capitol Hill," says a gay politico. Another says, "The inherent inconsistency of a coalition that shelters both gay loathing 'Christian' conservatives and conservative gays will soon suffer its final rupture."

Will it? We shall see, as the Foley scandal continues to unfold, and The List continues to circulate.

[Lancey Howard]

BUMP

[Lancey Howard]

In their tirade against the Bush White House, Isikoff and Corn found a hero: Paul Pillar, then the CIA officer in charge of the Middle East. During the 2004 election campaign, I wrote in a column that Pillar was delivering off-the-record briefings to citizens groups around the country, and was highly critical of the president seeking a second term. Probing such subversion at the CIA might have been an interesting exercise for an investigative reporter, but that is not what this book is about.

Indeed. The book is strictly a smear job, and quite a lousy one. Pee yoo.
Baby mice like Corn will never grow up.

[Lancey Howard]

(( ping ))

You definitely do not want to miss this.

[Allan]

Corn ping.

[Samwise]

[Fedora]

Thanks! The battle between reporters could get interesting--still waiting for Miller to weigh in as well. . .