only if they are critical of Republicans.



NOVAK: I'd like CBS, at this point, to say where they got these documents from. They didn't get them from a CIA agent. I don't believe there was any laws involved. I don't think we'll have a special prosecutor, if they tell. I think they should say where they got these documents because I thought it was a very poor job of reporting by CBS. Why did CBS not go to the -- to Killian's family and get -- and ask them about it, as ABC did, and got these quotes, and they said they think they're phony documents -- I thought -- I thought that the "60 Minutes" thing by Dan Rather was a -- was a campaign operation, rather than an attempt to get to the bottom of the truth.

HUNT: Robert Novak, you're saying CBS should reveal its source?

NOVAK: Yes.

HUNT: You do? You think reporters ought to reveal sources?

NOVAK: No, no. Wait a minute.

HUNT: I'm just asking.

NOVAK: I'm just saying in that case.

HUNT: Oh.

Did I tell you that Fifth & Hawthorn is going to close?

You ought to drop me a PM about that one, buddy.

have any friends. If he did they would tell him that smile he puts on his face when he says CROSSFIRE!! makes him look deranged.  Bob

Time to write more checks to the DNC and Moveon - don't think I could take Fifth & Hawthorne closing and George W. being selected for Pres. by Diebold (instead of the Supremes, this time out).

-- Modified on 9/12/2004 10:21:22 PM

for "outing" the CIA agent.  Freedom of the press probably won't allow criminal prosecution, though.

with time to expand on his comment.  I'm not positive, but I'm fairly certain that journalistic ethics do not require a reporter to keep his sources confidential if they have provided him with fraudulent information/documents.

Do journalistic ethics require a reporter to keep his sources confidential if a government agent has been outed and the national security of this nation has been compromised??????

for their country.  It is wrong for anyone that calls themselves a patriot and believes that they are, to endanger such a person.

I've become more and more dubious about this story since the hue and cry began.  I think there's always been some question as to whether Valerie Plame is actually an undercover operative (rather than some cubicle jockey at Langley), and her husband has been proven to be a liar.  In fact, Novak's reporting on the issue has proven to be embarrassingly accurate to the far Left who want to discredit the Administration.  Wilson himself had a carefully-written piece in the Washington Post a few weeks back which baldly misrepresented the Novak piece to which he was responding.

But I'm not speaking about Novak's responsibility to come clean if your assumptions are correct, and he did out an undercover operative for political game.  That's a different question.

I was speaking to the journalistic credo.  I don't believe that loyalty is owed to sources who defraud you.  To the contrary, not only does the journalist owe the victim of a fraud an apology, but he has a responsibility to identify the source to prevent others from being similarly victimized ... and so the public can consider the source and his or her associations.