On Novakula

Digby writes:

Robert Novak was once a real journalist but after the events of the past few years, it's safe to say that he no longer can be considered anything but a Republican operative, specifically a Rove acolyte who basically works for him.

Obviously this begs the question as to why Obama chose to respond so forcefully although Digby goes on to offer some support for Obama's reaction. Still, we should all probably take a deep breath and realize that Novak clearly relishes dishing out whatever little bit of inside baseball he can in his columns. It's what keeps him in the conversation now that he's (thankfully) off television. My feeling is he just ran with this because he had little else to offer and he's too lazy to do any real reporting so he just regurgitated what he heard at a recent D.C. cocktail party when he wasn't stuffing his mouth with mini-quiches. Still, is this the type of stuff Obama - who is behind, albeit not by much in Iowa - really wants to spend the last five weeks talking about. In that respect this is clearly one more small victory for the Clinton campaign.