With no objection from Novak, Scarborough falsely cleared Rove of leaking Plame's identity

[NNN0LHI]

http://mediamatters.org/items/200707190003?f=h_topic

On the July 18 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, during a discussion of the CIA leak case with conservative columnist Robert D. Novak, host Joe Scarborough falsely suggested that White House senior political adviser Karl Rove was not involved in the leak of former CIA operative Valerie Plame. At the beginning of his conversation with Novak, Scarborough said the press "followed like a pack of dogs talking about was it Rove, is it Cheney, is it Bush, who was it, who was it, and when they found out it was Armitage, everybody kind of yawned and went on." Later in his conversation with Novak, Scarborough reminisced about "getting on my show every night, saying, 'If Karl Rove leaked this information, he should be fired.' ... While we're all going through this process, you've got the special prosecutor, who already knows it's Dick Armitage."

Scarborough was repeating a claim frequently made in the media that because he was the primary source for Novak's publication of Plame's CIA employment, Armitage was the only administration official to technically "leak" her identity. However, contrary to Scarborough's suggestion that Rove did not "leak" Plame's CIA identity, Rove was reportedly Novak's confirming source regarding Plame and, three days later, after talking with Novak, reportedly leaked the information of Plame's employment with the CIA to then-Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper. At no time during the Morning Joe segment did either Scarborough or Novak mention Rove's reported actions.

In the July 14, 2003, syndicated column in which he revealed Plame's identity, Novak attributed his information about Plame to "two senior administration officials," whom he later publicly identified as Armitage and Rove. In his new memoir, The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington (Crown Forum, July 2007) -- which he was on Morning Joe to discuss -- Novak provides this account of his conversation with Rove:

[annabanana]

1. It is astounding how bald the lies are , isn't it..

really breathtaking.