"Democrats had been slow to react to my column of July 14, 2003, which reported that former diplomat Joseph Wilson’s mission to Niger was suggested by his CIA employee wife, Valerie Plame Wilson," Robert Novak wrote this week after "Scooter" Libby’s conviction. "By September, when the Justice Department began investigating the CIA leak, Democrats smelled another Iran-contra affair or Watergate. They were wrong."
Novak wrote that though his original column triggered Libby’s misery, "I played but a minor role in his trial. Subpoenaed by his defense team, I testified that I had phoned him in reporting the Wilson column and that he had said nothing about Wilson’s wife. Other journalists said the same thing under oath, but we apparently made no impression on the jury."
Not only does Novak think that President Bush should pardon Libby, he says it should be done "now, and not while he is walking out of the White House in January 2009."
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Follow us
