Day: August 4, 2005

And oops, the way he talks! Columnist and talking head Robert Novak said a bad word and walked off the set in the middle of a rant with James Carville on CNN’s Inside Politics today.

Bob should switch to decaf. And Carville is lucky he didn’t get punched.

Video can be viewed here, or here.

UPDATE: CNN has given Bob a little instant vacation.

“Bob Novak’s behavior on CNN today was inexcusable and unacceptable. Mr. Novak has apologized to CNN, and CNN apologizes to its viewers for his language and actions. We’ve asked Mr. Novak to take some time off,” a CNN spokeswoman told us.

But, (as of 4:30 PM PDT) they keep the video of his escapade on the CNN homepage, milking it for all its worth. Oh yeah, and their version bleeps out the bad word. Heh.

MORE: Novak calms down. (via NY Daily News Dish)

A calmer Novak said later: “He (Carville) said I was trying to please the editorial writers of The Wall Street Journal. I thought that was an unacceptable questioning of my integrity. I overreacted.

“I’ve gotten into a lot of shouting matches with James when I’m unable to outshout him. I just got a little frustrated.”

CNN host Ed Henry said on the air that he’d hoped to ask Novak about the grand jury inquiry into his column revealing the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame, but Novak denied that’s why he bailed out.

“I knew what he was going to ask,” he told us, “and I knew the answer I was going to give.”

Getting frustrated with James Carville during a discussion/debate is COMPLETELY UNDERSTANDABLE as far as I’m concerned. The guy drives me nuts. I don’t know how Mary Matalin does it.

STILL MORE: Now, an official apology from Bob. Carville should come out and say that his shot below the belt was inappropriate and that he’s sorry.

You’re next James.

MORE MORE: Carville speaks, with Josh Marshall. I’m copying the whole thing here, since The Coffee House server is being overrun with traffic.

Like a lot of you, I’ve been trying to figure out just what on earth happened with Bob Novak yesterday on Inside Politics.  So today I talked to James Carville and got to ask him a few of the questions about just what happened.

Atrios has a post on his site in which he suggests that Carville’s comment — which seems on the surface not to have been something that would have generated such an over-the-top response — may have been a reference to something more specific that only Carville and Novak or other insiders knew about.

That made a lot of sense to me.  So I asked. 

But Carville said, nope.  Nothing more than what it seemed like on the surface.  And he had no idea why it would have set Novak off. It didn’t seem like a big deal to him either. “At the time I thought it was like a 2.5 [on the scale on pundit show smackdowns].  But when I heard it again later, I thought, no, it’s more like a 1.5.”

Carville also told me that he didn’t get any sense during the interview or in anything that happened off the air that “something was building” or any other sense that the guy was about to snap.  It was as out of the blue to him as it was to everyone watching.

In general, Carville seemed to have the same reaction when I talked to him — a mix of genuinely not knowing what to make of the whole thing, mixed with genuine bemusement and maybe some latent hints of laughter — that he does on the tape as Henry gamely tries to continue the interview as though nothing had happened.

What Carville did say was that the tension seemed entirely to do with Ed Henry, not with him, as many others have pointed out.  And I’ve also learned that when the copy of Who’s Who was sitting there on the table, Henry apparently had it bookmarked with a Post-It note to right about where you’d expect to find Wilson’s entry.

All that together makes me think that the real money quote isn’t the barnyard epithet that sent Novak to the CNN penalty box, but the “Just let it go!” he barked at Ed Henry as he started to bolt the stage. 

To my eyes that line seemed to have a lot more uummmph behind it than the BS headliner.  And maybe that’s why Novak — or I guess, yet another reason why Novak — stomped down to the 9th floor to talk to the CNN brass after he left the set.

Spoken like a true liberal, thanks Josh.

What-eh-vah.

Ground Control to Environmentalist Wacko, come in Wacko, do you copy?

Shuttle commander sees environmental destruction from space

Commander Eileen Collins said astronauts on the shuttle Discovery had seen widespread environmental destruction on Earth and warned today that greater care was needed to protect natural resources.

“Sometimes you can see how there is erosion, and you can see how there is deforestation. It’s very widespread in some parts of the world,” Collins said.

Collins, flying her fourth shuttle mission, said the view from space made clear that Earth’s atmosphere must be protected, too.

“The atmosphere almost looks like an eggshell on an egg, it’s so very thin,” she said. “We know that we don’t have much air, we need to protect what we have.”

If the Commander would have said something like, “The evidence of the perfect work of God is in everything I see here in space”, the left would have gone crazy. The MSM would have stuffed the story. But no…Collins talks about the environment and it’s a front page story.

Someone on board should immediately check the flow of the oxygen feed to Commander Collins.

The award goes to Susan Ager of the Detroit Free Press. Ager starts her Thursday column with the following:

“More than 300 people escaped with their lives from a burning plane in Toronto on Tuesday. Now I want to know: What did they lose?”

She wants to know what material possessions were lost aboard the Air France flight that crash landed and burned on Tuesday. You heard me right. Every other story in the world focused on the most important factor – that none of the 309 souls on board were killed. But is that important to Susan? Heck no. She wonders what it’s like for the businessman survivor who has to show up for his presentation in a T-shirt and shorts.

She goes on…

“I wonder about the tangible things these survivors lost, and how those losses complicated their lives.

I read that the plane held a 27-year-old woman from India and her 4-year-old son, both immigrating to Canada. How much of what means the most to them burned up in their checked luggage?

Did she manage to grab his favorite plaything from beneath the seat in the smoke-filled darkness? What will she now be compelled to buy first in her new country?”

What the?

Does anyone (other than Ager) wonder for a second if a mother thought about grabbing a cheap little plastic toy or a simple stuffed animal for her son in those few seconds in which she was sure they both would die?

Do you think any one of these people were worried about leaving their copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on the plane?

Susan, these people were glad to be ALIVE! Contrary to what the little imbecile in your pea brain has to say, a life is worth more than a child’s plaything.

Unbelievable.

The New York Times is investigating the adoption of Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts’ children.

The TIMES has investigative reporter Glen Justice hot on the case to investigate adoption records of Judge Roberts’ two young children, Josie age 5 and Jack age 4, a top source reveals.

Judge Roberts and his wife Jane adopted the children when they each were infants.

Both children were adopted from Latin America.

A TIMES insider claims the look into the adoptions records are part of the paper’s “standard background check.”

Roberts’ young son Jack delighted millions of Americans during his father’s Supreme Court nomination announcement ceremony when he wouldn’t stop dancing while the President and his father spoke to a national television audience.

Previously the WASHINGTON POST Style section had published a story criticizing the outfits Mrs. Roberts had them wear at the announcement ceremony.

One top Washington official with knowledge of the NEW YORK TIMES’ plans declared: “Trying to pry into the lives of the Roberts’ family like this is despicable. Children’s lives should be off limits. The TIMES is putting politics over fundamental decency.”

One top Republican official when told of the situation was incredulous. “This can’t possibly be true?”

Children’s lives SHOULD be off limits.

Why would anyone want to serve in public office in this day and age with the threat of people digging through your trash can? Next thing you know, they’ll develop a filter that connects to the high speed internet junction box on your house so they can intercept all of your electronic communication, etc. I bet it already exists and is being used right now.

Public service – is it worth the cost?