reality-based educator

Something is rotten in Viveca's Novak's story. She says she can't remember when she told Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, that Rove was Cooper's source. Yet in her first-person mea culpa in TIME today she says:

Here's what happened. Toward the end of one of our meetings, I remember Luskin looking at me and saying something to the effect of "Karl doesn't have a Cooper problem. He was not a source for Matt." I responded instinctively, thinking he was trying to spin me, and said something like, "Are you sure about that? That's not what I hear around TIME." He looked surprised and very serious. "There's nothing in the phone logs," he said. In the course of the investigation, the logs of all Rove's calls around the July 2003 time period--when two stories, including Matt's, were published mentioning that Plame was Wilson's wife--had been combed, and Luskin was telling me there were no references to Matt. (Cooper called via the White House switchboard, which may be why there is no record.)

I was taken aback that he seemed so surprised. I had been pushing back against what I thought was his attempt to lead me astray. I hadn't believed that I was disclosing anything he didn't already know. Maybe this was a feint. Maybe his client was lying to him. But at any rate, I immediately felt uncomfortable. I hadn't intended to tip Luskin off to anything. I was supposed to be the information gatherer. It's true that reporters and sources often trade information, but that's not what this was about. If I could have a do-over, I would have kept my mouth shut; since I didn't, I wish I had told my bureau chief about the exchange. Luskin walked me to my car and said something like, "Thank you. This is important."

Okay, so she knows she's fucked up by telling Luskin that Rove was Cooper's source. It's a major fuck-up, actually, because Cooper and TIME are suing trying to keep him from having to testify to Fitzgerald about who Cooper's source is, yet Novak has just blabbed it over Fuzzy Navels with Rove's lawyer. You'd think she'd remember a major fuck-up like that, especially since she didn't tell anybody else about it and was hiding in from her editors at TIME. I mean, she knows if she tells anybody else what she told Luskin they'll look at her like she's an idiot. Which she is.

But can she remember the exact day she told Luskin this info that Luskin himself told her "is important"?

Nope.

Fitzgerald wanted to know when this conversation occurred. At that point I had found calendar entries showing that Luskin and I had met in January and in May. Since I couldn't remember exactly how the conversation had developed, I wasn't sure. I guessed it was more likely May.

...

A new meeting with Fitzgerald was arranged for Dec. 8. Leaks about my role began appearing in the papers, some of them closer to the mark than others. They all made me feel physically ill. Fitzgerald had asked that I check a couple of dates in my calendar for meetings with Luskin. One of them, March 1, 2004, checked out. I hadn't found that one in my first search because I had erroneously entered it as occurring at 5 a.m., not 5 p.m.

When Fitzgerald and I met last Thursday, along with another lawyer from his team, my attorney, a lawyer from Time Inc. and the court reporter, he was more focused. The problem with the new March date was that now I was even more confused--previously I had to try to remember if the key conversation had occurred in January or May, and I thought it was more likely May. But March was close enough to May that I really didn't know. "I don't remember" is an answer that prosecutors are used to hearing, but I was mortified about how little I could recall of what occurred when.

January, March, May...she's not sure when she gossiped info to Luskin that is so important that it may provide Karl Rove with a "Get out of jail" card.

Yet she remembers knowing how big a fuck-up she had made when she divulged Rove was Cooper's source to Luskin.

How is it she can remember making a major fuck-up in the case by talking out of school but can't remember what month she made the fuck-up? I mean, there's a big difference between January and May!

I don't believe Novak's story here. She's lying about something or leaving something out, most likely because if she tells the whole truth she'll look even dumber than she already does in this case. I'm not saying she has Judy Miller complicity in this case, but she's as full of shit as Bob Woodward, the man who Novak wrote an article about in TIME after Woodward testified to the CIA leak grand jury that he too had been leaked Valerie Plame's identity by a senior administration official.

Viveca Novak and Bob Woodward - two lying liars who belong to the same lying pea pod.