Karl Rove (right) and Bob Novak “off the record” in 2003.
On CNN’s “Inside Politics yesterday, Candy Crowley interviewed Robert “Bob” Novak about the Valerie Plame case, or, as I like to think of it, the Leaking Rove case:
CROWLEY: I wanted to talk to you about the CIA leak story, because a couple of things have come out that I wanted to see if I could get you to talk about. The first one is that there is a story out there that Karl Rove testified that you were the one that told him that Valerie Plame was at the CIA.
NOVAK: Well I can’t talk about anything that I have done. But I would say that it’s, to me, very interesting that all these leaks on the grand jury are not coming from the grand jury, or — as far as I know — or from the special prosecutor. They are coming from lawyers for various people who are participating in it, or the participants themselves, which is a little bit on the unusual side.
The question is, really, political question, is Karl Rove in serious trouble because of this? And you get all kinds of views, but the consensus in the Republicans I talked to is that the word is coming out from the White House he doesn’t have any legal problems, he’s not going to be prosecuted. If that’s right — I have no idea whether that’s right — I think he’s going to be OK. He’s not going to be popular with the people who are attacking him anyway.
I noticed that this has revived the whole story which is the reason I haven’t been on television very much lately. And so all things might have a happy consequence, but it has revived the story and the Democrats are trying to make a lot of it. But I think this is a hard story to keep alive until the grand jury and special prosecutor came up with something.
CROWLEY: Well outside whether you testify — I assume you can’t tell us whether you testified at the grand jury or still won’t tell us. Outside of that, can you tell us whether you ever told Karl Rove about Valerie Plame’s status?
NOVAK: I can’t tell anything I ever talked to Karl Rove about, because I don’t think I ever talked to him about any subject even the time of day, on the record.
Personally, if either Rove or Novak told me the time of day, I’d get a second opinion.
Hah! That last line cracked me up. I wondered why I hadn’t seen much of that b******* on the talk shows lately. And what is all this about on or off the record? Is that some kind of legal mumbo jumbo?