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Robert Novak died today of brain cancer.

Novak will perhaps be best remembered -- if at all -- as one of the most compulsive professional liars to have wormed his way inside the Beltway, and that's saying something. And when it came to the interference he ran to protect the Bush-Cheney administration -- culminating in his central role in the Valerie Plame affair -- and his resulting efforts to cover his tracks, it even had historic proportions. Novak himself had constantly lied about this role, and was fond of accusing the people uncovering his tracks of lying. (See Marcy's authoritative work on Novak for more.)

Unsurprisingly, his friends are now eager to make us all forget this. Tim Carney's remembrance omits any mention of it whatsoever. And then there was Fred Barnes on Fox this morning, who simply followed in his friend's footsteps and flatly lied about the Plame case:

Barnes: Bob -- you know, Bob was unruffled by the whole thing. He had to get a lawyer, but, ah, you know, it was no problem to him.

Of course, it turned out that he was the first one to hear from anybody in the Bush administration about Valerie Plame, uhm, being a part, and her husband, you know, helping her husband get this, go to this trip to Africa, and then say that President Bush had -- what President Bush had said about Saddam Hussein seeking uranium in Africa was wrong.

They're still discussing it. It turns out that President Bush was right.

But anyway, Bob was caught up in this scandal, he'd heard about it first, and reported it in his column, and then was perfectly comfortable being the center of attention in a legal case that went on for years and years.

WTF? It's long been an established fact that Novak's reportage was wrong, and in fact was just a propaganda-driven smear on behalf of the Bush administration, since Plame in fact had nothing to do with Joe Wilson getting the Niger assignment. (George Tenet himself explained: "Mid-level officials in CPD [The CIA’s Directorate of Operations Counterproliferation Division] decided on their own initiative to [ask Joe Wilson to look into the Niger issue because] he'd helped them on a project once before, and he'd be easy to contact because his wife worked in CPD.")

And since when has it "turned out" that "Bush was right" about the Niger yellowcake? Not only was the report on which he based the claim he made in the State of the Union built from set of hoax documents, but the White House ignored warnings that this was likely the case. Moreover, there has been no subsequent evidence to suggest that Saddam indeed sought yellowcake from Niger.

Ah, but such things as facts and truthfulness matter little to people like Robert Novak and Fred Barnes. All they care about is covering their tracks. Lying is what they do, right up to their final breaths.

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Check out David Shuster's MSNBC reportage on the story dug up by Murray Waas yesterday regarding Dick Cheney's rewriting of White House talking points about Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson.

Notice anything missing?

Yeah, we noticed it too: There's not a single mention of Murray or his reportage. Shuster briefly alludes to Joe Gandelman's Moderate Voice blog -- which was one of many who picked up and linked to the piece. And who does he have on to talk about it? A reporter from the Washington Post -- which so far has not even mentioned the story either in its pages or on its website. (And then he and the NBC reporter talk about it as if Cheney were admitting this as part of his media legacy tour -- when in fact it was dug up out of an FBI interview conducted several years ago.)

I mean: WTF?

I know that reporters in the mainstream media like to think of themselves as the real journalists in the evolving post-Internet world, while we dirty hippie bloggers are mere parasites who help distribute the information they create -- add-ons, as it were.

But the reality is that not only are bloggers doing a lot of real journalistic work these days, there are real journalists who have turned to blogging as the chief means to publishing their work. I happen to be one of these, and so does Murray.

If this had been carried in one of those mainstream outlets first, MSNBC and Shuster would certainly have credited them with the story -- or they'd have had to face the wrath of their colleagues. Failure to cite reporters who originate breaking and important news is considered a major ethical faux pas in the journalistic business.

Well, the same holds true for we dirty hippie bloggers, including those of us who happen to be actual journalists.

These people owe Murray Waas an apology. And they need to update their ethical standards to reflect the reality of the business they're in today.

UPDATE: Commenters have noted that Shuster took pains to credit Waas in later broadcasts. If so, it should be duly noted (we didn't catch those broadcasts); but the failure to do so in this case was also quite real.

UPDATE II: Editorial note: Shuster has in the past done excellent work and often credited Waas on previous stories, so we are working on the assumption that this was an anomaly and probably not a mistake created by Shuster, but rather the show's producers. We're not trying to single out Shuster here, but rather raising an issue that happens all too often to independent journalists working in the blogosphere.

7Online: (h/t MrEMan)

President Bush issued 16 pardons on Thursday and commuted the sentence of an Iowa man who was convicted on drug charges.

[..]With this batch, Bush has issued 113 pardons and commuted three sentences in his nearly six years in the White House, according to spokesman Tony Fratto.

Pardons are an end-of-the-year presidential tradition, and Bush was not expected to issue any more this year. He last issued pardons in August.

[..]The list did not include former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, charged in the CIA leak case with perjury and obstruction.
[..]Bush remains the stingiest of postwar presidents on pardons. President Clinton issued 457 in eight years in office. Bush's father, George H. W. Bush, issued 77 in four years. President Reagan issued 406 in eight years, and President Carter issued 563 in four years.

Read full article here

A federal judge on Monday upheld subpoenas to compel testimony of journalists at NBC News and Time magazine in a special prosecutor's probe into whether Bush administration officials illegally leaked a covert CIA officer's name to the news media.

Plame is the wife of Joe Wilson, a former ambassador who was asked by the CIA to travel to Niger in February 2002 to check reports that Iraq had tried to buy enriched uranium from the African country.

A newspaper columnist disclosed Plame's identity in July last year and Wilson accused the Bush administration of having leaked the information to pay him back for having publicly taken issue with the president's uranium claim.

Disclosing the identity of a clandestine intelligence officer is a federal crime as is leaking classified information to the media.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2004/08/09/judge_upholds_media_subpoenas_in_cia_leak_case/

Scooter is back.

Murray Waas:

"Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff has testified that President Bush authorized him to disclose the contents of a highly classified intelligence assessment to the media to defend the Bush administration's decision to go to war with Iraq, according to papers filed in federal court on Wednesday by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case...read on"

ReddHedd has two posts up about this story. The Left Coaster, the major dude on the "uranium issue" has more. Andrew Sullivan says: Bush Nailed...Right winger Tom Maguire, looks at it a bit differently.

Cheney Authorized Leak Of CIA Report

The new Bob Woodward strikes again.

Murray Waas

"Vice President Dick Cheney directed his then-chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on July 12, 2003 to leak to the media portions of a then-highly classified CIA report that Cheney hoped would undermine the credibility of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, a critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, according to Libby's grand jury testimony in the CIA leak case and sources who have read the classified report....read on"

UPDATE

FDL:

"Bottom line: this time there's no wiggling out of it. Dick Cheney ordered Scooter Libby to leak classified information to a reporter for nothing more than political hay prior to an election when they felt that the truth of Joe Wilson’s allegations could hurt them at the polls. They spared nothing — not even national security - in the craven pursuit of power...read on"

(Revised clip has John King attached with Noron's report now.)

ReddHedd:

"Norah O'Donnell reports on MSNBC that Rove will be testifying today before the G/J for a fifth time in the CIA leak case. I have to say that in my experience, this is really unprecedented - I can't ever remember any witness who was also potentially a subject in an investigation giving a prosecutor this many under oath opportunities to skewer them.

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"O'Donnell reports that there are serious questions about how forthcoming/honest Rove has been-and that there are potential questions of more legal jeopardy."

Norah does say that there will be a statement issued by Rove later today for what that is worth. John Roberts gives us the "Team Rove" spin in his reporting.

(h/t David Edwards for putting both clips together)

Jane: "George W. Bush has picked new nominees for the FEC.-Bush is also appointing a Democrat, Robert D. Lenhard, who was quite helpful to the 1600 Crew as part of the legal team that challenged the constitutionality of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. But there is perhaps another reason why Mr. Lenhard is being rewarded by BushCo. at just this moment. He's the husband of Viveca Novak, whose testimony now provides the foundation for Karl Rove's defense in the CIA leak case....read on'"

They don't even try to hide it anymore. Why doesn't the Washington Post report this little tidbit? Let's ask John Harris shall we?

via Atrios: A second Time magazine reporter has been asked to testify in the CIA leak case, this time about her discussions with Karl Rove's attorney, a sign that prosecutors are still exploring charges against the White House aide...read on

Talk Left looks at some past articles by the "other" Novak....

BREAKING: More Questions for Rove
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Presidential adviser Karl Rove to give additional testimony in CIA leak case without guarantee he won't be indicted later, people familiar with the investigation say."

Is Fitzgerald getting ready to make his case? Looks like Rove is in the cross-hairs.

Capitol Buzz has a little more on the story.

Lawrence O'Donnell's prediction: "...at least three high level Bush Administration personnel indicted and possibly one or more very high level unindicted co-conspirators.

Make your predictions ladies and gentleman and maybe you can win some C&L gear from the store. There's high and then there's very high. O'Donnell has been right since the beginning of this.