Plame Gossip - A little bit on Novak's "ask the president who leaked"

There's a lot of speculation as to why Novak said this yesterday. (This post may not interest everybody.)

"I'm confident the president knows who the source is," Novak told a luncheon audience at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh on Tuesday. "I'd be amazed if he doesn't."

My first opinion is still that Novak, frustrated by the fact that he lost his career by publishing a White House mandated hit piece, struck back.

Jason, who knows a little something about the Plame investigation, offered this in comments,

I think Novak is hoping that if he aligns himself with Woodward he won't be seen as such an evil bastard. However, I get the feeling that Novak feels he was hung out to dry by his pals in the White House and that is why he said the president knew who his source was. I guess he felt that no one rallied around him.

That's a good point. From an egomaniac like Novak, having it pointed out that he is not as valued as Woodward must've shaken his overly high self identity.

At Firedoglake, I read this interesting theory from their comments, but I'm not too sure about it, as I would guess that Novak would be staying waaaayy away from anything Rove right now.

I think Rove is nervous, and he's prodding Bush (via Novak) into saying something like, "I don't know who the leaker was." Or "Karl Rove has my complete support."

So, Jason, I don't have a concrete answer at this point, but I think there's definitely something to these Novak comments. I don't believe they were a "throwaway line" as the righty hardball guest repeated over and over last night. Anybody got other theories?