Bob Novak, the shifty bastard...

In an interview with Tim Russert on Meet the Press (transcript here), Bob Novak tried to weasel his way out of responsibility for outing Valerie Plame. I would recount all the different ways here, but virtually every question Russert asked was responded to with a new excuse from Novak. My favorites:

"That was a misstatement on my part... I hope I’m not screwing up on this interview because I’m much better interviewing than I am giving interviews. They didn’t give me the name. And of course it was not a “they,” it was one person, which I later checked out with Mr. Rove." (why did he have to check this out with Rove?!)

"...there’s a difference between undercover and being a covert agent."

"...she had been outed by the traitor Aldridge Aimes many years ago."

and my full-on, A#1 favorite, in response to Russert's comment, "[Bill] Harlow [a source for Novak's Plame column] works as an NBC News consultant. I talked to him on Friday. He said that he told you, 'It’d be really bad if you wrote her publicly'."

Novak's reply?

"Now he may—he may, he may think he said it, but he, he never—he never said that to me."

Oh, come on, Bob. Come on.