Blonde and elegant, Viveca Novak was for nearly 20 years the consummate “inside the beltway” Washington reporter, comfortable in the world of  government policy and agency regulations, while also adept at working “sources,” those lawyers and lobbyists who make the wheels turn in the nation’s capital.  A casual remark to a friend and source who also happened to be Karl Rove’s attorney put Novak in the cross-hairs of the Valerie Plame investigation. The Plame scandal, and its aftermath, led to a parting of the ways with her employer, Time Magazine, and a transition from the mainstream media to nonprofit journalism.