The Year of the Fake: " This was the year when fakeness ruled: fake rationales for war, a fake President dressed as a fake soldier declaring a fake end to combat and then holding up a fake turkey. An action movie star became governor and the government started making its own action movies, casting real soldiers like Jessica Lynch as fake combat heroes and dressing up embedded journalists as fake soldiers. Saddam Hussein even got a part in the big show: He played himself being captured by American troops. This is the fake of the year, if you believe the Sunday Herald in Scotland, as well as several other news agencies, which reported that he was actually captured by a Kurdish special forces unit"

I interviewed Novak not long after this for a too-kind profile I was writing and asked how he felt about being a pawn in Abrams's deception. His answer: He "admired" Abrams for lying to him on national television because the lie was told in the service of fighting Communism. "He had a tough job and there were lots of people out to get him," Novak averred, expressing zero regrets about misinforming his viewers. "Truth" did not even appear to enter into his calculations. There was his side and there were the other guys, period. That the Post and CNN willingly lend space to the man, knowing what they do, is another of the ongoing scandals involving journalistic standards and conservative ideological domination of the elite media.

Finally, regarding the identity of the leakers--well, yes, Karl Rove is obviously a top suspect, given both his power and modus operandi. Ditto Dick Cheney's Rasputin, I. Lewis Libby. But what about Elliott Abrams? A convicted liar and longtime ally of Novak whiling away his time inside the National Security Council, he has played a much larger role in these war plans--and the battles that have accompanied them--than so far has been recognized by the media. Abrams has quite legalistically denied any role in "leaking classified information," according to White House press secretary Scott McClellan. But the last time Abrams pretended ignorance, he was lying. When caught, he found himself celebrated by Novak, pardoned by Bush's daddy and given a spanking new career by Bush himself. I think he knows the drill by now.