Dick  Morris vouches for Novak: "He's never proven wrong. He's
 
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 22:23:03 -0500

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<p><b>Dick  Morris vouches for Novak: "He's never proven wrong. He's always 
right" </b></p>
<p><a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200711210006?src=item200711210006">http://mediamatters.org/items/200711210006</a></p>

<p>In his November 17 <a href="http://mediamatters.org/rd?src=item200711210006&to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.humanevents.com%2Farticle.php%3Fid%3D23467" title="http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=23467">column</a>, nationally syndicated columnist 
<a href="http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/people/robertnovak?src=item200711210006" title="http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/people/robertnovak">Robert D. Novak</a> wrote that "[a]gents of 
Sen. Hillary [Rodham] Clinton [D-NY] are spreading the word in 
Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal 
opponent for the party&#39;s presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama [D-IL], but 
has decided not to use it." As <i>Media Matters 
for America</i> <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200711200001?src=item200711210006" title="http://mediamatters.org/items/200711200001">noted</a>, Novak acknowledged on the November 
19 edition of Fox News&#39; <i>Fox &amp; 
Friends</i> that he had no personal knowledge of any "scandalous 
information," and that his source was not on the Clinton campaign, but rather a 
"well-known Democrat" who "was told by an agent of the Clinton campaign ... 
about the alleged scandal." Despite the complete absence of specifics in Novak&#39;s 
allegations or his sourcing, Fox News contributor and nationally syndicated 
columnist Dick Morris defended Novak&#39;s column during the November 19 edition of 
Fox News&#39; <i>Hannity &amp; Colmes</i> 
and said of Novak: "I know that Robert Novak is almost never wrong," adding: 
"He&#39;s never proven wrong. He&#39;s always right."</p>

<p>Morris&#39; praise of 
Novak notwithstanding, <i>Media Matters for 
America</i> has identified numerous instances in which Novak has been 
"proven wrong" -- by others, and by himself, 
including:</p>

<ul style="margin-top: 0in"><li class="MsoNormal" style="color: black"><i>Media 
Matters</i> has <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200707090006?src=item200711210006" title="http://mediamatters.org/items/200707090006">documented</a> Novak&#39;s continually evolving 
-- and frequently contradictory -- accounts of his July 8, 2003, conversation 
with then-deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, during which Armitage 
disclosed to Novak former CIA operative Valerie Plame&#39;s identity as a CIA 
employee. Novak -- who later outed Plame in his July 14, 2003, column, sparking a 
Justice Department inquiry into the leak of Plame&#39;s identity -- has claimed 
that Plame&#39;s identity "was given to me as an offhand manner" and that his 
original source (subsequently revealed to be Armitage) "told me through a third 
party that the disclosure was inadvertent on his part." But he also said, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200707090006#20071120?src=item200711210006" title="http://mediamatters.org/items/200707090006">challenging</a> Armitage&#39;s account, in a September 14, 2006, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/rd?src=item200711210006&http://www.townhall.com/columnists/RobertDNovak/2006/09/14/armitages_leak" title="http://mediamatters.org/rd?src=item200711210006&http://www.townhall.com/columnists/RobertDNovak/2006/09/14/armitages_leak">column</a>: "Armitage did not slip me this 
information as idle chitchat. He made clear he considered it especially suited 
for my column." </li></ul>

<blockquote>

<p>In his 
memoir, <i><a href="http://mediamatters.org/rd?src=item200711210006&to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.randomhouse.com%2Fcatalog%2Fdisplay.pperl%3Fisbn%3D9781400051991" title="http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9781400051991">The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in 
Washington</a></i> (Crown Forum, July 2007), Novak wrote 
that in the exchange over 
Plame&#39;s identity, Armitage described 
the information as "real Evans and Novak." Novak 
added: "I believe he meant 
that was the kind of inside information that my late partner, Rowland Evans, and 
I had featured in our column for so long. I interpreted that as meaning Armitage 
expected to see the item published in my column." </p>

<p>Novak was 
quoted in a July 22, 2003, <i>Newsday</i> article saying of his interview: 
"I didn&#39;t dig it out, it was given to me," adding that his then-unnamed source 
"thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it." When later 
asked to reconcile that quote with his claims that the revelation was "offhand," 
Novak claimed both that his comments were not "very artfully put," and that 
<i>Newsday</i> misquoted him. 
</p></blockquote>



<ul style="margin-top: 0in"><li class="MsoNormal" style="color: black">In a June 4 column, Novak <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200706040006?src=item200711210006" title="http://mediamatters.org/items/200706040006">claimed</a> that deputy White House political 
director Scott Jennings "targeted no candidate for support" during a January 26 
political briefing for General Services Administration (GSA) administrator 
Lurita Doan and more than 30 of the agency&#39;s political appointees. In fact, 
according to a May 18 <a href="http://mediamatters.org/rd?src=item200711210006&to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fwp-srv%2Fnation%2Fdocuments%2FGSA%2FGSAreport.pdf" title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/documents/GSA/GSAreport.pdf">report</a> by the U.S. Office of Special 
Counsel, Jennings&#39; briefing specifically targeted dozens 
of Republican candidates for support and Democratic candidates for 
opposition. </li></ul>

<ul style="margin-top: 0in"><li class="MsoNormal" style="color: black">In his March 12 <a href="http://mediamatters.org/rd?src=item200711210006&to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.townhall.com%2Fcolumnists%2FRobertDNovak%2F2007%2F03%2F12%2Fhillary%2C_king_and_goldwater" title="http://www.townhall.com/columnists/RobertDNovak/2007/03/12/hillary,_king_and_goldwater">column</a>, Novak accused Sen. Clinton of 
"re-inventing her past" because Clinton&#39;s March 4 speech in Selma, Alabama, 
included a "claim of her attachment to Martin Luther King Jr. as a high school 
student in 1963," suggesting that this conflicted with her description of 
herself as a "Goldwater girl" in her memoir, <i><a href="http://mediamatters.org/rd?src=item200711210006&to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.simonsays.com%2Fcontent%2Fbook.cfm%3Ftab%3D1%26pid%3D414620" title="http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?tab=1&amp;pid=414620">Living History</a></i> (Simon &amp; 
Schuster, June 2003). As <i>Media 
Matters</i> <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200703120008?src=item200711210006" title="http://mediamatters.org/items/200703120008">noted</a>, however, Clinton wrote in <i>Living History</i> both that she heard King 
speak when she was a teenager and that she was a Goldwater 
girl. </li></ul>

<ul style="margin-top: 0in"><li class="MsoNormal">In his August 28, 
2006, column, Novak <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200608290006?src=item200711210006" title="http://mediamatters.org/items/200608290006">suggested</a> that U.S. District Court Judge 
Anna Diggs Taylor&#39;s decision striking down the Bush administration&#39;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. 
</li></ul>

<ul style="margin-top: 0in"><li class="MsoNormal" style="color: black">On the April 21, 2005, edition of 
CNN&#39;s now-defunct <i>Crossfire</i>, 
Novak <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200504250010?src=item200711210006" title="http://mediamatters.org/items/200504250010">claimed</a> that President Bush and other 
Republicans "never said" Social Security should be privatized. As <i>Media Matters</i> noted at the time, Bush, 
members of his administration, and other prominent Republicans have advocated on 
several occasions that Social Security be "privatized." 
As a 
presidential candidate in 2000, 
Bush said: "What 
privatization does, it allows the individual worker his or her choice to set 
money aside in a managed account." </li></ul>

<ul style="margin-top: 0in"><li class="MsoNormal" style="color: black">On the February 21, 2005, edition of 
<i>Crossfire</i>, Novak <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200502230005?src=item200711210006" title="http://mediamatters.org/items/200502230005">defended</a> the Swift Boat Veterans for 
Truth, saying that their attacks on Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) during the 2004 
presidential campaign were "honest" and "exactly correct." As <i>Media Matters</i> has <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200711090008?src=item200711210006" title="http://mediamatters.org/items/200711090008">noted</a> several times, most of the Swift 
Boat Veterans&#39; allegations about Kerry&#39;s Vietnam war service have been 
thoroughly discredited, often by official military records, but also by the 
Swift Boat accusers themselves, who struggled to keep their stories 
straight. </li></ul>

<p>From the November 19 
edition of Fox News&#39; <i>Hannity &amp; 
Colmes</i>:</p><blockquote>

<p>COLMES: 
We now continue with Dick Morris. I want to get to this Novak issue on this 
alleged bombshell. It&#39;s a he-said, he-said, somebody told me and I have no 
sources. Do we automatically believe a story with no name, no attribution, no 
sourcing? Novak said he heard it from somebody who was told, quote, "by an agent 
of the Clinton 
campaign about alleged dirt." This is so far removed from any kind of sourcing 
--</p>

<p>MORRIS: 
Well, the last time this particular columnist did something without a lot of 
sourcing, as I recall, you felt for it, hook, line, and 
sinker.</p>

<p>COLMES: I 
did?</p>

<p>MORRIS: 
Yep, when he said that Valerie Plame was outed by somebody in the Clinton [sic] 
administration and he wouldn&#39;t identify who. They named a special prosecutor 
--</p>

<p>COLMES: I 
didn&#39;t fall for that hook, line and sinker.</p>

<p>MORRIS: 
They spent hun -- well, he turned out to have been right. They spent -- they 
spent millions --</p>

<p>COLMES: 
Valerie Plame was outed by the Bush administration. That&#39;s not what I fell for. 
That wasn&#39;t my position.</p>

<p>MORRIS: 
-- no, no, Novak said she was outed by the Bush administration. And there was no 
sourcing on it. It was his word, and based on his word, all of Washington got 
turned upside down, named a special prosecutor, some poor son of a gun almost 
went to jail for it, even though he didn&#39;t do it, so 
--</p>

<p>COLMES: 
Well, fine. We found out there was Richard Armitage, we found out that there was 
Scooter Libby. Let&#39;s find out who the names are behind 
this.</p>

<p>MORRIS: 
-- so I -- so, you know and I know that Robert Novak is almost never 
wrong.</p>

<p>COLMES: 
I&#39;m not questioning his talent as a reporter.</p>

<p>MORRIS: 
And therefore -- and therefore --</p>

<p>COLMES: 
I&#39;m questioning that in this particular case, before you say, "Well, you know, 
I&#39;m alleging that I have stuff on Obama, or at least I heard it from somebody 
who heard it from somebody," shouldn&#39;t there be some degree of 
sourcing?</p>

<p>MORRIS: 
No more than there was on the Valerie Plame story. One of the good things about 
Novak is, like Jack Anderson before him, he breaks stuff that always turns out 
to be right. <b>He&#39;s never proven wrong. He&#39;s 
always right.</b> But he doesn&#39;t get his sourcing.</p></blockquote><table width="100%" style="background: #e8e8e8; 
border: 1px solid  #ffffff; font-size: 80%" cellpadding="1">
<tr>
<td style="border-right: 1px solid  #ffffff;" 
width="40%">
</b> Contact: <br />
<b>Dick Morris</b></td>
<td valign="top"><a href="mailto:comments@vote.com">Dick Morris</a></td>
</tr>
</table>
<table width="100%" style="background: #e8e8e8; 
border: 1px solid  #ffffff; font-size: 80%" cellpadding="1">
<tr>
<td style="border-right: 1px solid  #ffffff;" 
width="40%">
</b> Contact: <br />
<b>Fox News Channel</b></td>
<td valign="top"><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77538,00.html">FOX News Channel</a><br />1-888-369-4762<br /><a href="mailto:Comments@foxnews.com">Comments@foxnews.com</a><br />1211 Avenue of the Americas<br />New York, NY 10036</td>
</tr>
</table>
<table width="100%" style="background: #e8e8e8; 
border: 1px solid  #ffffff; font-size: 80%" cellpadding="1">
<tr>
<td style="border-right: 1px solid  #ffffff;" 
width="40%">
</b> Contact: <br />
<b>Hannity &amp; Colmes</b></td>
<td valign="top"><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,110858,00.html">Hannity & Colmes</a></td>
</tr>
</table>



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