SNITCH Novak

When it comes to his sources, his scoops, and sliming his enemies, Bob Novak just can't keep his mouth shut. And he's got a new tell-all book to prove it.

Even before writing his infamous 2003 column outing Valerie Plame, Novak couldn't help leaking her identity to a random stranger, according to his new book, The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington. Shortly after meeting with State Department Deputy Richard Armitage, who told him about Plame's identity, Novak was walking up 19th Street when he was approached by a "nondescript man without tie or jacket."

After only a few minutes of conversation about the Bush Administration's rationale for taking the country to war, "I blurted out the information I had just learned, telling him [Joe] Wilson was no intelligence expert but had been sent on the mission to Niger by his wife, who worked on counterproliferation at the CIA."

Novak also told the stranger that Wilson was "an asshole."

Novak concludes he "had done something stupid by revealing the information about Wilson's wife to a perfect stranger," attributing his carelessness to "old age, the fatigue of a busy day, or walking around in Washington's midsummer heat in a heavy three-piece pinstripe suit." By odd coincidence, that stranger turned out to be a friend of Wilson—the ambassador called Novak the next morning and blamed him for leaking Plame's name. "I said and I agreed with him, and I apologized for my behavior," writes Novak.

In the book, Novak goes on to reveal dozens of his closest sources cultivated over his five-decade reporting career. Among the names: Karl Rove, James Baker, George Schultz, Bill Moyers, Lee Atwater, Jack Kemp, former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, and John Sunnunu.

What made him spill the names, which take up probably half of the book's index?

Novak adds an author's note explaining that he respected the wishes of those who wanted their identities kept secret. As for the rest? "I felt that the material divulged was not that sensitive or that so much time had passed that no great damage would be done."

The "Prince of Darkness" also takes time to skewer his fellow scribes, including the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol who called Novak's conduct "reprehensible" (the former friends haven't spoken since March 2003). And when blustery commentator John McLaughlin sidled up to Novak at a party and "without a single word of salutation, asked: 'Who was your source on Valerie Plame?'" Novak writes that he "put his mouth to McLaughlin's ear" and said, 'Fuck you!'"

And finally, there's his quip about CNN's Paula Zahn, whom he says was beautiful and charming but "knew nothing about politics."