Novak Admits That Hillary/Obama "Smear" Column Is Second Hand

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Novak Admits That Hillary/Obama "Smear" Column Is Second Hand
By Greg Sargent - November 19, 2007, 1:15PM

The Huffington Post has posted some video of Robert Novak going on Fox News today to defend himself against criticism of his weekend column, in which he claimed that "agents" of Hillary had explosive info on Barack Obama but were refraining from releasing it.

In case you missed it, Novak's column prompted a furious exchange between the Hillary and Obama camps. Critics lined up to blast Novak for putting out such murkily sourced info.

Now Novak has "clarified" his sourcing: It's second-hand. In the interview, he says he was told of this by someone who was "told by an agent of the Clinton campaign."

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/11/novak_admits_that_hillaryobama_smear_column_is_second_hand.php

[DemocratSinceBirth]

1. Wahhhhh

Second hand hearsay is admissable

























under the old Soviet Union legal code...

[KittyWampus]

14. and totally the way some operative work. Planting bogus stories about opposition.

[MethuenProgressive]

35. It's very disappointing Obama fell for this Republican ploy.

Hillary would've laughed it off, not made a public fool of herself ala Obama.
Obama's inexperience really showed with this huge gaff of his.

[yellowcanine]

2. he was told of this by someone who was "told by an agent of the Clinton campaign."

So let me see - "told by someone who was told by an agent of....."

That makes it least "third hand" and maybe "fourth hand" as agents usually speak for someone else. Way to go, Novak! Shall we play a game of "telephone" to drive home the point here?

[rocktivity]

3. So he DID report SECOND HAND HEARSAY as fact!

Cue the Vonage theme!

:woohoo:
rocknation

[yellowcanine]

8. Not Second Hand - third hand at least. I tally it up here.

The quote:

'he (Novak) was told of this by someone who was "told by an agent of the Clinton campaign."'

Novak was told - hearsay
by someone who was told - second hand hearsay
an agent - third hand hearsay - since an agent is speaking for someone else.
And it could even be more than that because what the agent heard may have been second hand or more already - who knows? Particularly when one considers Novak's sloppy use of language. Who is "an agent of the Clinton campaign"? Who knows if Novak is saying it. He also maintained that Valerie Plame was a "CIA Operative" but she wasn't "undercover" oh no, not on your live. Then later he said he "mispoke" by calling her an operative. In other words, words mean nothing to Novak.

[HereSince1628]

10. Yes, third hand. Interesting how that often turns out to be fabricated

I once had a cousin whose neighbors boyfriend's brother worked for blah blah blah.

How does such a fallen talent(?) as Novak keep working? The guy is way past ready to put out to pasture.

[yellowcanine]

15. And I particularly loved the part where Novak says he "confirmed" the rumor with another "source"

How the heck does he know that the "agent of the campaign" wasn't spreading the shit around?
Laughable it is, if it weren't so infuriating how he passes off his "insider info" as fact.

[sufrommich]

19. The whole mess just screams

washed up,discredited hack,doesn't it?

[yellowcanine]

21. Agree except for the "washed up" part. That assumes there was something of substance there to

"wash up". In this case I would say no. But the "discredited hack" part rings true.

[Vickers]

4. That's some hard-hitting journalism there, pal.

:sarcasm:

[IndianaJones]

5. that makes him a trusted source here. nt.

[rodeodance]

7. the irony is that I think it did for some

[flordehinojos]

6. "clarified?" ... "told by someone who was 'told by an agent of the Clinton camp?'"

Gosh Darn Almighty! That has all the sounds of a Poppy Bush Operative making up stories with the intended resulto of killing two birds with one gossip!

Consider the source. Consider the stool. Consider the Smear. Consider the fight.

It is all about Poppy Bush and his double dealing, good for nothing, dirty tricks ...

[rodeodance]

9. good comment here from the site:

Comments (13)
gqmartinez wrote on November 19, 2007 1:28 PM:
The damage that Novak wanted to cause has already been done. The point of the GOP smear machine is not necessarily to "see what sticks", it's to have so much out there that people begin to smell something fishy when only roses are around.

Saying Dems don't support the troops doesn't make it true, but when you say it ten thousand times, people think about it more and more. Wittingly or not, Obama has contributed to the GOP game against a fellow Dem. I don't think he's a bad person and will still gladly vote for him if he's the nominee, but he's helped give credibility to a part in the GOP machine that didn't deserve the credibility. Short term political gain at the cost of aiding the GOP, however tempting, should not be one of Obama's tools. He's too gifted to resort to this against a fellow Dem.

[TwilightZone]

11. And yet, it was accepted as fact by many on DU.

Considering the source is apparently less important than perpetuating the (false) message.

[Forkboy]

27. Kind of like the Obama thing today.

Lots of people have agendas, and the truth isn't always one of them.

[RDANGELO]

12. One thing you can bet on.

Whatever he was thinking, he did this for the same reason he outed Plame, to benefit the GOP.

[yellowcanine]

17. Exactly - And when he says that "no Republicans were involved" in the story, he forgets his own

fat Republican ass.

[progressoid]

13. Why isn't that fat fuck in jail?

[incapsulated]

16. Perfect, a friend of a friend...

Of my cousin...

Unreal how people lap this stupid shit up.

[Clintonista2]

18. How embarassing for the Obama campaign!

I wonder when they will apologize to Mrs.Clinton and her campaign?

[THUNDER HANDS]

20. so?

The point wasn't whether it came from someone directly from the Clinton camp. The point wasn't even whether or not it was true.

The point was the innuendo.

The point was to get supporters to think bad thoughts in the back of their heads. To wait for something bad to happen. To sour the mood.

The fact that both camps directly responded to it and started fighting about it proves it was successful - whoever originally plotted it.

[avrdream]

24. Yep, classic Rovian.

Neither candidate could win - except by both of them turning on the source itself (Novak) instead of each other.

Classic, and they both fell for it.

[DeepModem Mom]

22. K&R

[ClarkUSA]

23. Name a story Novak has published that was false. Has Clinton called Novak a liar yet? Why not?

I would, if I were innocent.

*crickets*

Oh, and his source was a top Democratic operative who's still undecided. The operative was approached
by "an agent of the Clinton campaign" who pushed the "scandalous" swiftboat Obama story.

Sounds like the MO of Chris Lehane and Mark Penn to me. I'll bet Hillaryworld doesn't dare call Novak
a liar because he could name names or the operative source could.

Kudos to Obama for his SMACKDOWN. Oh, and did you know that in the latest ABC/Washington Post
poll, Iowans rate him as more than twice as honest and truthful as Clinton?

Hmmm... wonder why?

lol

[sufrommich]

29. Clinton doesn't give the right wing snipers the

luxury of undeserved credibility. You've crossed the line from defending whichever candidate you're supporting, to head cheerleader for the worst GOP smears out there. Stop and take a look at yourself,you're defending Robert Novak for god sake.

[ClarkUSA]

32. Can't come up with one false story ever published by Novak, can you?

*crickets*

[sufrommich]

36. .........

"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Newspaper columnist and CNN co-host Robert Novak said Monday that while he learned the identity of a CIA operative from administration officials, there was "no great crime" and that he was not the recipient of a planned leak. "

" During the 2004 presidential campaign, he repeatedly lauded and promoted the anti-John Kerry book Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry (Regnery, August 2004) without disclosing that his son, Alex Novak, was the director of marketing for the book's publisher, Regnery Publishing. Novak has been a central figure in a controversy surrounding his role in revealing the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame, an incident now under investigation by the Department of Justice. Novak's explanation of the events of Plame's outing has been murky at best, and he has changed his version of events depending on where he was telling the story. "


"In his January 4 nationally syndicated column about how Democrats who oppose abortion rights might vote on upcoming stem cell research legislation, Robert D. Novak echoed the oft-repeated myth that "the late Gov. Robert Casey" was "enied the podium at the 1992 Democratic national convention because of his anti-abortion views."
In fact, as Media Matters for America has noted, several Democrats who opposed abortion rights spoke at the 1992 convention and at every subsequent convention. Moreover, in a 1996 article in The New Republic, Michael Crowley wrote that, "ccording to those who actually doled out the 1992 convention speaking slots," Casey was denied a speaking slot at the 1992 convention because he refused to endorse the Clinton-Gore presidential ticket, not because of his stance on abortion, as Media Matters has also noted."

"In his August 28 nationally syndicated column, Robert D. Novak falsely suggested that U.S. District Court Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's decision striking down the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance program was so off-the-wall that it "has been stayed and probably will be reversed" by a federal appellate court. In fact, Taylor stayed her own order when the parties to the lawsuit -- the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the federal government -- agreed to ask her to do so. Also, Novak baselessly claimed that "Taylor ended up with the case because of forum-shopping," a practice that Novak defined as "filing multiple law suits in quest of a favorable venue." However, the ACLU has filed only one lawsuit challenging the administration's warrantless wiretapping. Additionally, Novak falsely suggested that Yale Law School professor Jack Balkin had criticized the decision's legal reasoning but nevertheless "rejoiced" over it for "political" reasons. In fact, while Balkin did criticize the decision's legal rigor, he did not argue that the program should be halted for "political" reasons, as Novak claimed; rather, Balkin argued that Taylor reached the correct result because "the program is illegal."

Your hero worship is pathetic.

[ClarkUSA]

37. Hillaryworld propaganda pushers are pathetic.

The examples you site are mere opinion pieces not "scandalous" whispering campaign stories related to specific sources.

Try again.

lol

[sufrommich]

38. You asked for false stories,I gave them to you.

There are pages and pages of them at Media Matters and other media watch sites.But by all means,you want to claim Robert Novak as your new hero who "speaks truth to power",have at it pal.

[calteacherguy]

25. Why is this guy still running columns in major newspapers??? nt

[Cass]

26. So, in a nutshell, the whole thing was a bunch of bullsh*

We figured as much. Too bad Obama took that bait.

[PurityOfEssence]

28. He didn't "admit" or retract anything; he confirmed what he said before.

I'm getting pretty sick of misrepresentation, too, and this article's headline is pure rubbish.

What's more, this isn't "second-hand" or "third-hand", or anything of the sort: it's a first-hand report of an encounter, and he corroborated it by checking with another Democrat. Novak's an asshole and a running-dog for the privileged, but I've never heard of him making up a story.

He said initially that he had learned from a Democrat that "agents" of the campaign were circulating such rumors in Democratic circles, and that's what he's still saying. The tiresome triumphalists who wave this over their heads as "proof" that he's backing away from an obvious lie are themselves engaging in extreme distortion: it's wishful thinking that propels them to mischaracterize this interview, and it's deeply dishonest.

He's never intimated anything about the substance of these alleged allegations, and he doesn't here. He's literally not retracting or denying ANYTHING. In fact, he's stating that he confirmed it with another Democrat, so he's giving us more information than before.

Novak's a skunk, and there's no doubt about it, but that doesn't mean that this might not be correct. For all his many faults, I'm not aware of any substantiated accusation that he's ever made up a specific story like this.

He's a paleocon and a dark, dark figure of the power elite, but he was always against the Iraq War, and he was vocally against the Iraq War Resolution, so for sheer, bloodstained guilt, he's got a little bit on the good Senator there. That's not a judgment of morality, it's one of sense on his part.

People who feel that the "goodness" of their champion gives them the right to flagrantly distort reality and shout down dissent have a major problem, and there are many of them in many camps on this board.

The very resounding and ham-fisted approach of the Clintons and many of their supporters a nasty story like this the air of credence: for all their intelligence and imagination, both Clintons engage in simplistic, primitive, old-as-the-hills political chicanery. It's quite interesting to hear Novak compare this to what Nixon did in the '72 election: the methods are similar (if true), old-fashioned and reminiscent of actions of Boss Tweed or the Daley family.

[sufrommich]

30. How obsessive does your hatred for another Democrat have

to get for you to become an apologist for Robert Novak?

[Spirochete]

31. Why is that asshole still on TV

instead of at the bottom of a river in lead-filled Thom McCanns and all his fingernails jerked out? Damn traitor fucked over the CIA and an important operative.

[mrfixit]

33. Isn't it funny?

The MSM are bashing Obama for responding strongly to the smear tactics.

Remember Kerry 2004?

Obama acted correctly, IMO. He has some more of my respect now, due to the way he came out swinging on this.

There is NO WAY a 2008 Democratic presidential nominee is going to be able to ignore the RW smears this time around...

[BeyondGeography]

34. In light of what's happening in Iowa the probablility that Novak is telling the truth

just went up.

It's fast becoming an act of naivete or hopeless partisanship to think otherwise. She and her team will do anything to win. That's part of her "appeal," right? Gotta take the bad with the good...