Novak Keeps a Secret

Robert Novak, who publicly disclosed that Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Pflame, was a CIA agent, and so helped the Bush Administration's efforts to undermine Wilson's criticism of the rationales for the invasion of Iraq, can keep a secret it seems. In his column in the August 30 Washington Post, Novak wrote:

I first met Gonzales in 2001 when, along with other conservative journalists, I went to the White House for a background briefing by presidential counsel Gonzales on the new president's judicial nominations. I was stunned by the incoherence of the briefer. When I checked with several Republican senators, I received the same verdict. Their judgment was that Gonzales was not qualified to hold a senior governmental position.

And he tells us this after more than six years?

So the identity of a CIA agent gets disclosed immediately, but the incompetence of the man serving as White House Counsel to the President, and later Attorney General of the United States, should be kept a secret?

Perhaps this is something that Novak should have mentioned when those "several Republican Senators" were about to confirm Gonzales as Attorney General.