KING: How did it even come up?

WOODWARD: Came up because I asked about Joe Wilson, because a few days before, my colleague at the "Washington Post," Walter Pincus, had a front page, saying there was an unnamed envoy -- there was no name given - who had gone to Niger the year before to investigate for the CIA if there was some Niger-Iraq uranium deal or yellow cake deal. I learned that that ambassador's name was Joe Wilson, which as you know, Wilson eventually surfaced...I guess a few weeks later. So I said to this source, long substantive interview about the road to war. You know, at the end of an interview like this, after you do an interview on television, you might just shoot the breeze for a little while. And so, I asked about Wilson, and he said this. Most kind of off-hand.

That puts the date after June 12 which means his source told him after Libby learned it from a senior CIA official, a state department official and Dick Cheney.

The other point of interest in the show was Woodward saying that we shouldn't be suprised if Libby's lawyers turn on him in the future:

KING: Does Libby know who your source is?

WOODWARD: I don't know the answer.... what Libby knows about this. You know, you get gratitude from people and from strange places. And then there is the saying, "Beware of what you wish for." And sometimes I'm not -- that's a lawyer defending Libby, and that's our system, and don't be surprised if I get denounced by them at some point in this. That happens in journalism. But I am strictly in the middle; I don't wear a uniform. I'm not a Red State or Blue State in this.

I did provide information in this case about Libby.

There are some major unanswered questions here. Woodward says when he called his source to remind him about their conversation, the source immediately said he was going to tell Fitzgerald. But Woodward also says he has tried in the past year to get a release from his source about this.

If his source wanted to set the record straight with Fitzgerald, why wouldn't he have gone to Fitz when Woodward mentioned the conversation in one of his earlier attempts to obtain a release? Woodward says had his source not insisted on going to Fitzgerald and refused to allow him to tell Fitzgerald, he would have stayed silent. What changed in the sources mind, or is Woodward shading their true conversation? It makes more sense that Woodward would have called him and told him he was going to tell Fitzgerald, to correct the misimpression about Libby, and the source felt he had no choice but to go to Fitz.

Another question: Did this source learn of Plame's identity from Libby -- or from the June 10 classified memo? If he learned it from Libby, it may have been at a White House Iraq Group meeting, of which Stephen Hadley was a member. If he learned it from the memo, it is more likely he learned it from a State Department or CIA official.

One last question: Are Woodward's source and Novak's source the same? Is it the same as Walter Pincus's source?