What Novak should have done is call Armitage and say "This thing is all out of hand and a false image is being put out by the dims, the lackey press and the lackey prosecutor. I'm going to straighten out the facts."
If Armitage objected, the response should have been "Screw you, Dick" and write the column the next day.
As for Bush, he bungled it from the start. He should have labeled Joe Wilson as an incompetent liar and made it clear that the "exposure" of Valerie Plame - from whatever source - didn't amount to a bucket of warm pee.
Instead, the dims and their lackeys were allowed to write the script and a totally innocent person was convicted of a crime over nothing.
Amen. He capitulated to a DEM call for a special prosecutor, which itself lent "heft" to the false charge that an outing had occurred. Libby lied his ass off to investigators, and got burned. All Libby had to do to avoid prosecution was admit he knew (from the CIA) that Plame worked for the CIA, and that he told/confirmed that to Miller and Cooper.
As it is, some DEMs, to this day, assert that Plame was covert, that Cheney damaged a CIA asset, etc.