Bad News on the Mental Fitness Front

Novakula suspended after stalking off CNN set.  The world wonders - what chased him off?  Was it garlic, a silver cross, what?

Mickey is way ahead of the pack - per the video capture, it looks as if the interviewer had plunked a copy of "Who's Who" on the table.  We also have a photo of the Who's Who volume, taken from the publisher's website.  The Captain has commentary; we are just disappointed that our "Just Say 'No' To Novak" campaign has been flipped upside-down: we can hardly boycott Novak if he is boycotting us. 

More:  Wizbang has a photo of Wilson's Who's Who entry; a CNN spokesperson confirms to the Chicago Sun-Times that a Who's Who was on the table.

Comments

[peapies]

I've seen Jonah Goldberg (at the corner) utter as a possible source, Mary Matalin (she who worked for the VP at the time), among others an thought her to be a strange add in...might Bob be slightly agitated at Carvilles games?

pull out the "who's who" when you know James I am not going to say on TV your WIFE was the source?

Also, JG was spinning that he had a confirmation on "the source" and would publish this info soon. That was like 2 or 3 weeks ago.

weirdness quotient---just checked Matalin spelling in Husbands little black book, previous girlfriend is her cousin with same last name

[Jeff]

TM - I'm sure you've actually seen the entry for Wilson in Who's Who for 2003, I've seen you reference it as a source for her name, so maybe you can tell us what it says. Two questions that immediately occur to me: is Plame actually named in there? I assume the answer to that is yes. And, second and maybe more interestingly, is the sentence something along the lines of "Wilson is married to Valerie Plame," or is it something more like what was on his online bio, "Wilson is married to the former Valerie Plame"? Because if it is the latter, that raises the question of why Novak would refer to her by her maiden name, which was not her name after all at the time Novak was writing -- as Wilson's online bio made clear. Would you refer to someone identified as "the former Valerie Plame" by her former name, if not for some specific reason?

[Dwilkers]

Novak is clearly stressing out. Maybe its because he thinks he's being unfairly criticized. Maybe its because he has something to hide. Whatever it is he was on a *way* short fuse. I watched the video of the incident and saw nothing at all to justify him storming off the set like that.

[Martin]

Bad News on the Mental Fitness Front.

[Mackenzie]

A question for those who claim that Joe Wilson outed his wife by publishing an article under his own name ... Bob Novak has suggested that anyone could have found Joe Wilson's wife's name from looking up his name in Who's Who. One would assume that, whether from Who's Who or just the fact that the Wilsons lived openly in the Washington area, many people knew that Joe Wilson's wife was Valerie Wilson and that some may have known her maiden name Plame.

My question: Knowing her name, how would one make the association between her name and her employment at a CIA front company?

[jerkweed]

It's odd that Novak flipped the same day-almost the same time-the AIPAC guys were indicted.

Poor AIPAC-the scandal nobody loves, neither Dems, Repubs, blogs nor MSM.

[Crank]

I think we can safely predict that Novak will never be accused of undue coziness with AIPAC.

[Brian]

I don't buy the idea that Novak was responding to the presence of 'Who's Who' on the desk. First off, he apparently knew the question was coming. Second, the book was there the entire time - so it's not as if Novak had just realized what was about to happen.

But most importantly, the tape shows that Novak was obviously frustrated/angry with Carville. He turns to Carville and speaks *to him* when he says 'I think that's bullshit. And I hate that. Just let it go.' The walkoff comes a moment later.

So either it's a heckuva coincidence - Novak's preplanned walkoff just happens to come moments after his popoff at Carville - or the walkoff is directly tied to the outburst at Carville. I think it's more likely the latter.

[Applalled Moderate]

Novak having rage issues is not hard to imagine. Consider he knows who leaker #1 is and the circumstances of the leak. That means:

1. He knows or suspects he was used by his source and is now in a whole heap of trouble as a result; or

2. He knows he is going to get busted on the CIA issue, or he knows that the CIA spokesman's recent comments bear no resemblence to the facts; or

3. He knows that the whole business is a bunch of bullarkey, Plame's name was blowing about in the wind for months, but, ecause his lawyer has muzzled him, he cannot give his rep the ringing defense he thinks it deserves; or

4. He was a willing participant in a plot to get Wilson or his wife, and that's about to get exposed.

Any of these would tend to cause anyone to be short-tempered. Knowing the truth, and being unable to tell it -- and exonerate oneseself or conceal it -- and avoid the damage -- has got to a horrible position.

[Appalled Moderate]

One slightly off-topic observation (but, since it is a Plame issue, I'm not sure that it can be off-topic in this blog)

The Daily Telegraph noted that Plame has been on leave for a bout a year, and is now just returning. Wasn't it about a year ago that Congressional investigators revealed that Ms. Plame suggested her husband's name for the trip?

[jerkweed]

Having now reviewed the video, it's clear Novak was having a WWE moment. The investigation will be coming to a head soon, and how convenient he won't be on TV at this time.

[Larry Jones]

This is the same Ed Henry who spent years writing about intern shenanigans on Capitol Hill. Not exactly a first-rate journalist...

[cathyf]

Gee, I dunno, maybe Novak has some principled objection to making catty remarks about a person's appearence as a substitute to engaging her substantively? Nah... I doubt it... I seem to be the only person in America that thinks that Michael Moore doing propaganda for America's enemies might be even a teeny tiny wee bit more important than Michael Moore being fat. Just remember, Terri Schaivo was right...

Anyway, did anyone but me think that this is about the lamest "tantrum" you've ever seen? I mean Novak just mumbled something and rushed off. If I hadn't read the descriptions first I woulda thought that the super-size bran muffin and large cuppa' joe had just kicked in and Novak was making a run for the john! But then that's been Novak's defense from the beginning -- he's an arrogant, officious, holier-than-thou prick who writes with an arrogant, officious, holier-than-thou prick's writing style, and when Joe Wilson put Novak's Plame column through a normal-person filter, Wilson thought that Novak said Plame was a secret agent, when Novak only meant to say that she was a hack bureaucrat.

I know that you people all think Novak is a liar, but I find his "I'm an arrogant, officious, holier-than-thou prick" defense to be pretty compelling!

cathy :-)

[jerkweed]

The categories aren't mutually exclusive, cathyf.

[TM]

Bad News on the Mental Fitness Front.

I am stealing that.

Appalled - re Ms. Plame's one year "enforced laeve of absence" - one year ago the Senate report came out that linked her to his trip.

IIRC, the Senate also criticized the CIA for not finding someone who was not a spouse and for not having Wilson sign a confidentiality agreement. They were also puzzled about how Wilson knew things that were not, as best anyone could recall, part of his briefing.

Well. Kevin Drum had a post, which I summarized thusly:

Fans of the Joe Wilson story will find this post to be astonishing. Kevin seems to be speculating that the timing of Wilson's leaks and public statements were driven by information held only inside the CIA and passed to him by his wife.

Anyway, an obvious question - if she was on enforced leave pending an investigation, does the fact that she is back at work mean she was cleared?

And an obvious warning to my friends on the right - this could easily be a mousetrap (and for the truly paranoid, Ms. Plame's supporters might even leak a bit of smelly cheese) - Reps would have to be suicidal to go after Ms. Plame without solid, documented proof. And even that *proof* might be forged...

[BumperStickerist]

My question: Knowing her name, how would one make the association between her name and her employment at a CIA front company?

Well, if the husband of Valerie Plame mentioned her previous undercover status that would be a good start.

iirc, the Prince of Darkness said that Valerie was working at the CIA. Which she was.

Wilson's outrage at his wife being outed is made ironic by the fact that it was Wilson that 'outed' Plame as being formerly covert.

Unless you believe the press amicus brief which says that Plame's undercover status was blown twice before, intially with Aldridge Ames and subsequently with careless handling of paperwork in Cuba.

All of which explains events regarding Plame prior to Dubya taking office - and by 'taking' I mean, 'elected to'.

Tom, who is more familiar with the datelines than I, might consider this question: Did Valerie commit tax fraud by listing her employer as Brewster jennings on the campaign donation she made in 1999.

Or maybe that act showed that she thought she was undercover at the time. Even though, apparently, she was working at the CIA in Langley.

I don't know - but it's something (else) to think about in the context of this story.

imo, Wilson's response to Novak's column is more revealing than what Novak actually wrote.

Which isn't to say that Rove/Libby/Whomever et cetera shouldn't go to jail if they broke the law, et cetera, et cetera, et ceteera - but the press has been asking about 'classified informatin'

... if they reasked the same questions but just said 'information' the press might get better answers.

I'd find most of the Left's arguments regarding this more compelling if they weren't premised on a "cartoony" depiction of Rove and His Evil Right Wing Cabal of Personal Destructionists.

Hail Karl!
~ chest thump ~

[TM]

Wizbang has a photo of Wilson's Who's Who entry.

And a CNN spokeperson confirmed that it was a Who's Who on the table.

[sytrek]

That Plame worked for the CIA maybe was been a secret, but Wilson irrevocably associated her name with the CIA.
Again:
Given the established public nature of her maiden name documented above, the day Wilson's editorial appeared in the NYT Valerie Plame went from being the wife of Joseph Wilson, former ambassador, retired, to the wife of Joseph Wilson, CIA contractor that goes on WMD hunts and can not keep his mouth shut.
What was she planning to tell her underground contacts? Do not worry about my part-time CIA contractor husband?

[Steven J.]

NOVAK:Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report.

1) The report that Wilson was sent to check out was not identified as being from the Italians. According to the SSCI report, the source is identified only as "foreign government service."
However, the "CIA sent a separate version of the assessment to the Vice President which differed only in that it named the foreign government service"

http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/congress/2004_rpt/iraq-wmd-intell_chapter2.htm

2) If by "Italian report" Novak or his sources meant the forged documents, then they were wrong. Wilson's trip occurred months before the U.S. got the forged documents.