"solved the Not-So-Great Mystery of the Second Novak--at least in part:"

David Corn announces that he has "solved the Not-So-Great Mystery of the Second Novak--at least in part:"

Luskin, according to sources close to Viveca Novak, was a longtime source of hers, not a close friend (as has been wrongly reported).

Now, according to completely trustworthy sources close to Viveca Novak, this is what happened. Novak wasn't trying to tip off Luskin or to help him. During a conversation, Luskin said to Viveca Novak that Rove had never spoken to Cooper about Valerie Wilson. Novak instinctively pushed back, in the way many a reporter would challenge a source whom he or she believes is spinning or lying. "She assumed that Luskin was giving her BS," one close-to-Novak source says. "And she replied with something along the lines of, 'This is not what I hear.' She assumed that Luskin did know about the Rove-Cooper conversation and that she was not telling him anything he did not already know."

I've known Viveca Novak for close to 20 years, and this all squares with my nothing-but-positive impression of her. (Interest disclosed: I used to regularly play basketball with her husband, a career labor lawyer, whom I always had trouble guarding.)
http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/

There has been a lot of speculation over the nature of the Luskin-Viveca relationship. It did seem to me that if she DID pull a "too close to the source" stunt a la Judy Miller, it would have been TOO MUCH. Fold up the media, throw it out in the trash, and start all over again.

Assuming this read of the situation is correct, it looks like, rather than playing on a friendship with Viveca, that Luskin is trying to throw her to the wolves. Man, that is some cold shit!!!

But Firedoglake is not entirely buying it:

Well that's good to know. It was not a social engagement, it was an official, job-related interview. Then as a good reporter, she most certainly took notes in between highballs that she turned over to her editors about a meeting with the lawyer of the man who was going to let her colleague go to jail. I'm sure they came in handy when Time, Inc. was spending millions to defend itself in court.

...Maybe if they'd been a little better friends she might have told him that her meeting with Luskin took place "over drinks" in February, 2004 before he went out on a limb defending her.

I guess she's better friends with Jim VandeHei.
....

Let's hope she does a courthouse brief on the steps after she testifies! This is getting very interesting...