I've just been watching Meet the Press, where Robert Novak is being grilled on semantics. The issue is whether Novak's sources used the name "Valerie Plame", or whether his sources simply described Plame using the description "Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife". The powers-that-be have apparently decided that if Novak's sources merely uttered "Joe Wilson's wife is a CIA operative", they did not thereby "give Novak the name of a CIA operative". Novak is being criticized for having said, on two occasions when he was asked about the matter in 2003, that he was given her name by his sources. Now that Novak has been appraised of the Fitzgerald semantics for "give", he claims his previous statements were misstatements.
But Novak's original statements were correct. According (apparently) to Fitzgerald, where y is some bit of information, x does not give y to z if x only intentionally gives a non-trivial uniquely identifying description that allows z to easily obtain y. So suppose I approach a hotel concierge for information about a good place for seafood. She hands me a guide, and tells me to go the place listed on the top left-hand corner of the guide. According to Fitzgerald, I can legitimately complain to the hotel manager that she neglected to give me a name of a good place for seafood. And surely the hotel manager can then reprimand the concierge. But that's crazy; she clearly did give me the name of the restaurant, and it's not in order to reprimand her.
Just as it's not in order to reprimand the hotel concierge for failing to give me the name of the restaurant, so it is in order to reprimand Novak's sources for giving him the name of a CIA operative.
