Robert Novak, RIP

The WSJ carried its obituary of Robert Novak, the conservative opinionator who reveled in the nickname "Prince of Darkness," an obit penned by Stephen Miller, on p. A16 of the August 19th edition. It is illustrated with a fascinating old black-and-white photo of RN as a young man, cigarette hanging from lips in I'm-know-I'm-being-photographed style, at a bank of ancient looking telephones. It is an illustration reminescent of old Hollywood movie portrayals of reporters, I cover the waterfront!.

Anyway, the obit says: "Because naming a CIA agent can be a crime, questions soon arose [after a certain notorious RN column] about whether Ms Plame was in the CIA and who had told Mr Novak. in the resulting imbroglio, Mr Novak divulged his sources before a grand jury. A federal investigation ended with...." and so forth.

One page flip away, on A14, there's an editorial, "Prince of Light," honoring Novak. This says, of the same subject: "The Plame scoop was merely another case of Novak doing his job, and he protected his source ... and behaved honorably even as others in the press corps abandoned First Amendment principles to cheer on a special prosecutor willing to throw reporters in jail."

Question, then: What did Novak tell the grand jury exactly? The WSJ says on A16 that he "divulged his sources" while it says on A14 that he "protected his source". Which is it? Even setting aside the stark contrast between the verbs "protected" and "divulged" ... was there only one source or many? The obit uses the word "sources" while the editorial uses the word "source." Could he have "protected" one by divulging another, explaining the odd inconsistency as to quantity there?

Also, is the WSJ now taking the stance that it was wrong for the special prosecutor to put Miller in jail? My memory, for which I claim no infallibility here, is that the WSJ editorial board was among those who were doing the "cheering on" about how terrible was her refusal to disclose her source and how it was right to put her in jail -- a view they now seem to regard as dishonorable.

Generally speaking, conservative folks such as the ones who write for the WSJ editorial page have over the years resisted the idea that "First Amendment principles" have anything to do with the obligation to give grand jury testimony. Or do I have my partisan scorecard mixed up?