Daily Inspiration Quote by Bob Novak

There is a whole ethics scandal hiding inside that shrug. "I didn't dig it out" is not just a denial; it is a carefully chosen alibi that reframes reporting as passive receipt. Novak makes himself a mailbox, not a messenger with agency. The line does a quiet job of laundering responsibility: if something was "given", then publishing it becomes less a decision than a reflex.

"They thought it was significant" is where the subtext gets sharper. The unnamed "they" matters. It disperses authorship across a fog of sources, inviting the reader to treat the revelation as institutional consensus rather than one journalist's call. Novak isn't saying the information is true, necessary, or in the public interest; he's saying important people believed it was. That is a different standard, and it conveniently shifts the burden of justification onto power itself.

"I used it" lands with a bluntness that almost dares you to object. It admits purpose: the name wasn't an accidental detail, it was the payload. In the context of Novak's most infamous episode - naming Valerie Plame as a CIA officer during the Iraq War controversy - the sentence reads like a defense built for a world where access is currency and consequence is someone else's problem. The rhetorical trick is that it sounds plainspoken, even humble, while smuggling in a philosophy of journalism that treats sourced intent as moral cover.