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On September 11, 2003, I was introduced to Robert Novak, who was the featured speaker, at a Goldwater Institute luncheon at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Phoenix.
I had been discussing the Novak/Plame column on The Charles Goyette Show since its first appearance in July. I felt that the implications of Novak’s column were serious and that it was not getting the kind of media attention it deserved – not unlike the Downing Street memos.
Since the story was being so badly neglected, I pressed Novak quite vigorously, both before and after his luncheon talk, for more details about his sources and for his thoughts about the gravity of the column. He was clearly uncomfortable with the topic and would say little.
Finally after the event wound down, we found ourselves side by side out in front of the hotel as we waited for the parking valet to bring our cars around. Again I pursued the question of his sources on the story, to which Novak gave me this very specific reply: “I’ll tell you one thing. It wasn’t Karl Rove.”
“It sure sounds like Karl Rove,” I said.
“Well, it wasn’t Rove. And that’s all I’m going to tell you,” said Novak.
I described the conversation with Rove on my show later that day, and have told the story a time or two since. As far as I know, I am the only person who has gotten anything specific from Novak on his sources for the Wilson/Plame story.
Incidentally, a couple of weeks later Rove came to town for a fundraiser for one of Arizona’s Republican congressmen. I gritted my teeth and attended the Camelback Inn luncheon, hoping to press Rove on the topic since nobody in Washington (is everybody there brain dead?) had done much about it. But he was whisked in and out so fast it was impossible to get anything from him.
Novak’s denial notwithstanding, I still think it was Rove.
-- Charles
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