Update

Or the 12,468,321 reason why Matt Drudge rules.

NOVAK RESPONDS: 'NOBODY IN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION CALLED ME TO LEAK THIS'
Mon Sep 29 2003 16:44:51 ET

"Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador Wilson's report when he told me the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction.

"Another senior official told me the same thing. As a professional journalist with 46 years experience in Washington I do not reveal confidential sources. When I called the CIA in July to confirm Mrs. Wilson's involvement in the mission for her husband -- he is a former Clinton administration official -- they asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else.

"According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of undercover operatives."

What I suspected all along in all honesty, no one in the White House leaked Wilson's wife's name to Bob Novak.

The question now is this, was there even a crime committed? Notice the last few lines? "According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of undercover operations." To my understanding the laws that could have been broken deal with people who are not any of things that Wilson's wife was, meaning that those laws only applied to CIA agents who operate covertly in a foreign country (officially referred to as NOC, or Non-Official Cover).

Since Wilson's wife was a desk jockey at the CIA, and since her employment at the CIA was probably a fact of public record -- that anyone could have discerned for themselves -- then where is the possible "violation" of federal law? She could have possibly had her privacy invaded, but for that a civil suit is filed, not a full blown federal investigation.

Once again, those on the Left try to find something to pin on the president. Once again, they have tried and they have failed.