Newsday Takes Credit for Breaking CIA Flap Story

Everyone knows that Robert Novak wrote about the wife of ambassador Joe Wilson in his July 14 column.

What everyone does not know is that Newsday, the Long Island newspaper, is taking credit for publicizing the fact that Valerie Plame was an "undercover" CIA agent.

Newsday writes today: "On July 22, in a story by Washington bureau chief Timothy M. Phelps and staff writer Knut Royce, Newsday reported that Plame worked at the CIA 'in an undercover capacity.' The story cited 'intelligence officials' as its source."

To Novak, Newsday was not scooping anyone.

In his latest column on the subject, which Novak says he felt compelled to write, the scribe says: "I would like to stress three points. First, I did not receive a planned leak. Second, the CIA never warned me that the disclosure of Wilson's wife working at the agency would endanger her or anybody else. Third, it was not much of a secret."

Novak says further that, while wondering why someone from the Clinton administration would be trusted with giving credence to the Bush administration's claims about Iraq's nuclear weapons program, he asked an official about it.

Novak was told that Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counter- proliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees: Wilson's wife.

Novak writes, "It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger. ... The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply untrue."

So there you have it.

The Democrats are apparently so desperate for something, anything, that they can use against President Bush, they have latched onto this old, ancillary issue, having nothing to do with the White House, and tried to turn it into a scandal.

Call this one "nothing-gate."

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