[mburbank]

Here's what Novak is saying:

"Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this," Novak said on CNN's "Crossfire," of which he is a co-host. "There is no great crime here."

"They asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else. According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operative and not in charge of undercover operators," Novak said.

If this is %100 percent true (and that remains to be seen) Novak is confirming his sources are in the CIA. I'm not sure what he means by not a spy, but it wasn't public knowledge, she did have an 'official' job and it wasn't for the CIA. If true, all this satement says is that her life, and no other lives were endagered by ratting her out. It's still an act of revenge, it's still a warning to whistle blowers.

And that's the BEST spin you can put on it. Meanwhile,

" The Washington Post quoted a "senior administration official" in a story Sunday as saying that two top White House officials disclosed the identity of Wilson's wife in calls to at least six Washington journalists. Novak was the only recipient of the information who published it, the Post reported."

Six other journalists? And only Novak was unprincipled enough to run the story? Six? That's not a leak, that's a campaign. And that's story. There may not be a traceable white house source that committed a federal offense. But something very nasty happened here.