Prince of Darkness Illuminates Sources

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."