ROBERT NOVAK DIES AT 78

"the Prince of Darkness" is gone. Conservative writer and journalist for the past half century, Novak's signature line  "Always love your country, but never trust your government," summed up his approach to investivagive journalism, a job he loved and was proud to have partaken in. 

Novak's  stamp on recent politics will be his media outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent in 2003. Plame, U.S Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife, had her identity made known to Novak, through Richard Armitage, some feel through Dick Cheney's office as a way to stifle Wilson, whose op ed piece in the NY Times challenged the administration's claim that Iraq had enriched uranium. Enriched uranium was the main reason that the White House felt it just to invade Iraq as a matter of national security. Scooter Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, took the fall as charges of obstruction of justice and perjury were laid on him. His sentence was later commuted by President Bush but Libby was never pardoned, a bone of contention still to this day between Bush and Cheney. read article