Survival Of The Fittest...

Skipping Merrily Along as Others Take the Heat

"Oh, Mr. Novak’s name has come up a few times at trial. His column, "Mission to Niger," is Government Exhibit GX414. And it was mentioned several times in the court that the column led directly to government investigation. But for the most part, Mr. Novak went about his merry way as chief prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald went about his."

"For a man who kicked off a running story that put a reporter in jail, kept another one up nights thinking about it and led to the indictment of a high-ranking administration official, Mr. Novak has become Washington’s less-than-visible man."

"He is like Typhoid Mary," Edward Wasserman, a professor of journalism at Washington and Lee University, said of Mr. Novak. "Everybody is keeling over around him and he just keeps skipping along."

"It is a role that has come to suit him. Mr. Novak is, of course, the high-profile master of keeping it on the down-low. When prosecutors were issuing subpoenas to reporters, sparking a debate that went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, Mr. Novak said nothing. After the Supreme Court refused to hear those arguments and it became clear that at least two of his colleagues in the profession were either going to cooperate or going to jail, he said nothing." <more>

What do you expect? He is from Chicago.