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From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone.

Bob Novak's primary source revealed it is the most talked about Washington secret in years. Initial leak seized on by administration critics as evidence of how far the White House is willing to go to smear an opponent came from a man who had

no intention of harming anyone. So what does that mean for those that claim there was a White

House conspiracy? The shoes just keep dropping in the case of who leaked the name of CIA

operative Valerie Plame. Only one official has been indicted, the Vice President's former chief of staff, Scooter Libby,

and he was nabbed not for leaking, but for lying to a grand jury.

According to Hubris, a new book by Nation Washington editor David Corn and Newsweek's Michael Isikoff,

the first leaker, the one who told syndicated columnist Bob Novak, who told the world, was former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

Now, Novak had hinted in one of his columns that his source was, quote, no partisan gunslinger, and it's true, Armitage was often at odds with the president's policies and had no clear motivation for punishing a White

House critic by exposing his wife. But that's how most reporters told this story, that unknown

...