Non-journalists and spin doctors seem to be playing hard-and-fast with the rules for what constitutes binding "off-the-record" or "background" relationships between reporters and sources, so this may be worth a look.

Former Sen. Bob Kerrey, a member of the 9/11 investigating commission, ripped into Fox News Channel yesterday for publishing a transcript of a "background briefing" former White House counterterroism chief Richard Clarke gave reporters in 2002. Kerrey said:

I mean, Fox should say "occasionally fair and balanced" after putting something like this out.

(LAUGHTER)

Because they violated a serious trust.

(APPLAUSE)

All of us that come into this kind of an environment and provide background briefings for the press I think will always have this as a reminder that sometimes it isn't going to happen, that it's background.

Sometimes, if it suits their interest, they're going to go back, pull the tape, convert it into transcript and send it out in the public arena and try to embarrass us or discredit us.

So I object to what they've done, and I think it's an unfortunate thing they did.

Josh Marshall, who has taken up amazing amounts of bandwidth with his voluminous writing about the Clarke affair, asks:

Can we un-background Bob Novak's Plame sources too?

Here are standard, time-tested rules for the reporter-source contract when it comes to confidentiality: The reporter provides confidentiality. The source provides the truth. If the source is caught lying or intentionally misleading, all bets are off.

In these cases - which, thankfully, are rare - it can be a judgment call as to whether to remove the cloak of confidentiality from a source. In this case, with enough stark contradictions between Clarke's August, 2002 "background" briefing and his book and testimony, Fox could make a fair - even balanced - argument that Clarke voided his part of the contract.

In the Plame affair, Novak evidently believes his source didn't lie to him or intentionally deceive him.

(It's also worth noting that Novak has removed confidentiality from a high-profile source within the past few years. On July 12, 2001, Novak wrote:

Three and half-years ago, I reported that a veteran FBI agent resigned and retired after refusing a demand by Attorney General Janet Reno to give the Justice Department the names of top secret sources in China. My primary source was FBI agent Robert Hanssen.

Hanssen, of course, was later convicted of spying for the Soviet Union and Russia across the span of decades. Novak explained that he very reluctantly revealed his source. "When my source was revealed as a spy, my first fear was that I had been the victim of disinformation by a truly evil man." The uniqueness of the China story, combined with Hanssen's own extraordinary and damaging actions, compelled Novak to pull back Hanssen's confidentiality.

So far, nothing as unique or sinister has popped up with Novak's Plame story - despite all the hype. Here is how Novak explained his source in the Plame story:

During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger.

The bottom line is that when a reporter offers a source confidentiality, the source has to deliver honesty and the truth. Otherwise, it's a breach of contract. There are no blanket guarantees when it comes to "off the record" and "background" deals. Just like there are no blanket guarantees a source will tell the truth.