Rarely do lies simply go out in the world and stand on their own. To have staying power, they require a complex network of ancillary lies and human enablers (sometimes knowing, sometime unwitting) who create a web of falsehood. These tangled webs can drain families’ bank accounts, get people killed, cause great institutions to fall, even help crash an economy.

It’s like Karl Rove suddenly announcing that he’s going to be covering the US Attorney scandal as an objective analyst. Basic journalistic ethics require that if you were smack dab in the middle of something like the CIA leak case — nay, the very cause of its instigation — that you divulge that a columnn making such an observation, and that if you’re of the opinion that Fitzgerald viewed “journalists as adversaries,” you’re taking the opportunity to grind an extremely personal axe.

It’s no surprise that Novak didn’t — he’s not a journalist, he’s a Republican political operative and he’s been writing about things for so long without acknowledging his role in them that it’s probably just reflexive for him. But the fact that the Washington Post would run this, without even a footnote about Novak’s involvement, is egregious even for them.

Time to rouse Deborah Howell from local pie eating coverage: ombudsman@washpost.com.