NYT: At Leak Inquiry's Center, a Circumspect Columnist (Novak) [View All]

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As a syndicated columnist and fixture on cable-news shoutfests, Mr. Novak has opined from the right about some of the biggest stories of his time. He has been a stout cold warrior, a critic of Israeli policies and a passionate defender of military veterans who criticized Senator John Kerry's Vietnam War record.

But now Mr. Novak, 73, finds himself a central figure in perhaps the gravest confrontation between the government and the press in a generation, and he has been uncharacteristically circumspect.

With a federal judge having ordered two reporters to jail for refusing to name their sources to a grand jury investigating the disclosure of a covert C.I.A. officer, Mr. Novak, whose column identifying the officer set off this showdown, has been under increasing pressure in recent weeks to explain his role.

But he determinedly maintains his own counsel. On the C-Span "Washington Journal" this month, he calmly swatted away one caller who asked how it felt to watch others face jail. Then, when queried by Brian Lamb, the program's host, about the matter, he referred dismissively to the reporters, Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine.

"I don't know why they're upset with me," Mr. Novak said. "They ought to worry about themselves. I worry about myself."

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