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Editor's Note: This special feature on Robert Novak first appeared in the March 2009 issue of Townhall Magazine.Robert David Sanders Novak has been called many names. His close friends call him “Bob.” Most people call him “Novak.” His wife calls him “Robert.” Keith Olbermann has called him “The Worst Person in the World.” His more petulant critics have viler names for him. Many critics and admirers have called him “The Prince of Darkness.” I have had the honor of calling him “Boss.” Since I went to work for him at the end of 2001, Novak has been a mentor and...

The main reason I am writing this column is that many people have asked me how I first realized I was suffering from a brain tumor and what I have done about it. But I also want to relate the reaction to my disease, mostly compassionate, that belies Washington's reputation. The first sign that I was in trouble came on Wednesday, July 23, when my 2004 black Corvette struck a pedestrian on 18th Street in downtown Washington while I was on my way to my office. I did not realize I had hit anyone until a shirt-sleeved young man on...

McClellan To Testify Before House WASHINGTON (AP) ― President Bush's former spokesman, Scott McClellan, will testify before a House committee next week about whether Vice President Dick Cheney ordered him to make misleading public statements about the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity. McClellan will testify publicly and under oath before the House Judiciary Committee on June 20 about the White House's role in the leak and its response, his attorneys, Michael and Jane Tigar, said on Monday. In his new book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," McClellan said he was misled...

WASHINGTON - Former CIA operative Valerie Plame is trying to resurrect a lawsuit against those in the Bush administration she says illegally disclosed her identity. A federal judge dismissed Plame's lawsuit last year, saying there was no basis to bring a case. Plame's lawyers asked a federal appeals court Friday to send the case back before the judge and force him to consider its merits. Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, sued Vice President Dick Cheney; his former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby; former White House political adviser Karl Rove and former Deputy Secretary of State...

Q. Is it possible to get through an extended interview of Valerie Plame Wilson without mentioning Richard Armitage? A. Yes, if Joe Scarborough is the interviewer. The "Morning Joe" host conducted a 15-minute conversation with and about Plame today, much of which focused on her "outing" as a CIA operative. But the name of the State Department official who first disclosed her identity was never uttered. That wouldn't have fit the template that the disclosure was a nasty White House plot to punish Plame's husband Joe Wilson. Armitage, at State, was anything but a partisan GOP operative with an anti-Wilson...

A federal judge Thursday dismissed a lawsuit by former CIA operative Valerie Plame and her husband seeking damages against officials she accused of conspiring to disclose her identity. The defendants included Vice President Dick Cheney, former Cheney aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and two others. Plame and her husband, former diplomat Joe Wilson, had alleged that Cheney, Libby, White House political adviser Karl Rove and former State Department official Richard Armitage had violated their constitutional rights in the events that led to Plame being identified in news reports in summer 2003.

<p>Judge dismisses Valerie Plame's lawsuit accusing members of the Bush administration of leaking her identity... Developing..</p>

WASHINGTON - Jurors began deliberating Wednesday in the perjury and obstruction trial of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, is charged with lying and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. Jurors heard about an hour of legal instructions from U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton on Wednesday morning before beginning deliberations shortly before 11:30 a.m. They heard a full day of closing arguments Tuesday after a monthlong trial. The jury of eight women and four men must be unanimous before...

With all the journalists testifying about how and when they learned Valerie Plame’s identity as a CIA agent and anti-war diplomat Joe Wilson’s wife in the perjury and obstruction trial of Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr., The Stiletto thought that this handy dandy chart would help keep the story straight: Libby Told Me Libby Did Not Tell Me Matt Cooper (formerly with Time Magazine) Walter Pincus (Washington Post): Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer told me Judith Miller (formerly with The New York Times) Glenn Kessler (Washington Post): Topic never came...

Updated Sat. WASHINGTON -- A smorgasbord of Washington insider details has emerged during the perjury trial of the vice president's former chief of staff. For example, when Dick Cheney really needed friends in the news media, his staff was short of phone numbers. No one served up spicier morsels than Cheney's former top press assistant. Cathie Martin described the craft of media manipulation -- under oath and in blunter terms than politicians like to hear in public. The uses of leaks and exclusives. When to let one's name be used and when to hide in anonymity. Which news medium was...

Former vice presidential chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby is finally going on trial - after three years of investigations by a run-amok prosecutor, costing millions of taxpayer dollars - for a case in which, it is now conceded, no crime was committed. And that's the important point to remember, as a who's who of prominent witnesses - including "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert and even Vice President Dick Cheney - testifies at the trial. To repeat: The crime that was ostensibly under investigation never occurred. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had set out to uncover who leaked FBI agent...

What a Load of Armitage! What did Patrick Fitzgerald know, and when did he know it? BY VICTORIA TOENSING Friday, September 15, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT Richard Armitage has finally emerged from the cover-my-backside closet, "apologizing" on CBS for keeping quiet for almost three years about being the original source for Robert Novak's July 14, 2003, column stating that Joe Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA and had suggested him for a mission to Niger. He disingenuously blames his silence on Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's non-legally-based request--any witness is free to talk about his testimony--not to discuss the...

For months Washington’s liberal chattering class filled the airwaves and spilled barrels of ink on the always implausible conspiracy theory holding that Bush White House Pooh-Bahs intentionally leaked the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame in retaliation for her husband’s very public and largely untruthful campaign against the Bush administration’s war policy. But a new book by two decidedly not Bush-friendly reporters — David Corn of the left-wing Nation and Michael Isikoff of the Washington Post — shows the whole controversy to be a sham. No White House people were involved at all. Instead, the leaker was Deputy Secretary of...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was the source who revealed the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame to syndicated columnist Robert Novak in 2003, touching off a federal investigation, two sources familiar with Armitage's role tell CNN. The sources said Armitage revealed Plame's role at the CIA almost inadvertently in a casual conversation with Novak, and it is not clear if he knew her identity was classified at the time. Armitage was not indicted by the federal grand jury that investigated the disclosure of Plame's name to Novak and other journalists. Deliberately revealing the identify...

Valerie Wilson and her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, filed suit on Thursday against Vice President Dick Cheney, Mr. Cheney’s former top aide and the senior presidential adviser Karl Rove, charging they had conspired to violate their constitutional rights. The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court, accused Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rove and the former Cheney aide, I. Lewis Libby Jr., of conspiring to destroy Ms. Wilson’s career by leaking her identity as an undercover C.I.A. operative to the press. It says the three men had conspired to punish Mr. Wilson for his public assertions that the Bush administration had twisted...

June 13, 2006, 6:44 a.m. No Indictment of Rove in CIA-Leak CaseProsecutor Patrick Fitzgerald makes a decision. By Byron York Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has informed top White House adviser Karl Rove that Rove will not face indictment in the CIA-leak investigation, National Review Online has learned. The word came yesterday, when Fitzgerald told Rove lawyer Robert Luskin that he, Fitzgerald, did not plan to seek charges against Rove. This morning, Luskin released a brief statement:  On June 12, 2006, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald formally advised us that he does not anticipate seeking charges against Karl Rove. In deference to...

WASH POST's Ben Bradlee Claims Plame Leaker Was Richard Armitage Mon Mar 13 2006 10:48:34 ET THE WASHINGTON POST's famous Watergate editor Ben Bradlee claims that it was former State Department Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage who was the individual who leaked the identity of CIA official Valerie Plame. In the latest issue of VANITY FAIR: "Woodward was in a tricky position. People close to him believe that he had learned about Plame from his friend Richard Armitage, Colin Powell's former deputy, who has been known to be critical of the administration and who has a blunt way of speaking. 'That...

What a difference a few weeks make in the world of politics. One day, the Democrat Party and the mainstream news media are celebrating the indictment of a key White House staff member, then suddenly facts start to emerge that just might put a damper on the prosecutors case. Recall how Patrick Fitzgerald announced the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice charges. During his jovial press conference, Mr. Fitzgerald lectured Americans about how serious it is to leak classified information. He avoided using the term "covert" when describing Valerie Plame, because in order for...

FNC just read a blurb from the office of Patrick Fitzgerald, which annnounced that there will be no announcements today from his office (other than that one, I guess) regarding the CIA Plame/Flame Blame case.

Tonight on NBCs evening news, after the gleeful reporting of the 2,000th combat death in Iraq, giving only passing mention to the fact that 79% of the voters in Iraq approved of the Iraqi Constitution and Bill of Rights, describing later that the people are still "divided", NBC went on to their continuing biased coverage of Plame-gate, There was either a deliberate lie, or a blatant example of lazy ineptness on behalf of the script David Gregory was reading. The comment was to the effect of "…regarding the phone conversations of Karl Rove, and whether or not he "outed" Valerie...