1/4 of a Blog Post

Robert Novak dies.

(insert homespun wisdom about a family member - perhaps a cherished old aunt - saying something about not having something nice to say and then not saying anything at all)

...this, however, is priceless:

In his memoir, Mr. Novak said he would not have used Plame's name if the CIA director or the agency's spokesman told him it would have endangered national security or Plame's life. A CIA spokesman had twice warned Mr. Novak not to print Plame's name but could not reveal why to Mr. Novak because her status was classified.

Nobody told him that outing a CIA agent would harm national security, right, so Novak ignored warnings by the CIA to not out a CIA agent without actually saying why, because that would... out a CIA agent.

Rest in... something.

Help Me Obi-Wan Gingrich, You're My Only Hope

Pardon me while I snicker.

In serious conversations among Republicans since their election debacle Tuesday, what name is mentioned most often as the Moses, or Reagan, who could lead them out of the wilderness before 40 years?

To the consternation of many Republicans, it is none other than Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House.

Gingrich is far from a unanimous or even a consensus choice to run for president in 2012, but there is a strong feeling in Republican ranks that he is the only leader of their party who has shown the skill and energy to attempt a comeback quickly.

Wow, this would be frightening. The guy who shut down the government because he couldn't get a good seat on Ar Force One? Surely he wouldn't crack under pressure. The guy who went from leader of the Reagan revolution to resigning in disgrace in four years? Surely he has the staying power to lead.

Please don't do this, Republican Party. I don't know how we'd compete against gimmick politics and outdated beliefs that the country is still center-right. Don't make us compete against Newt.

(Did I hold the straight face?)

Guess That Means "Kid Stays In The Picture II" Is On The Shelf

Via Patterico, Robert Evans is retiring.

Robert Evans was a movie producer. Robert Novak used to work with Rowland Evans on the Evans-Novak Political Report. Novak, who has a brain tumor, is the one retiring.

Viva la blog revolucion. MSM SUXXOR!!!1!

(will there be a three-week investigation now and a hounding of the author, like Patterico would if this were in the LA Times?)

An Apology

If Robert Novak's brain tumor is the proximate cause of his running over a pedestrian and claiming not to see him despite the guy being splayed across the windshield, then I apologize for ridiculing him. I'm not certain this is the case, as there is a well-documented history of Novak being a reckless driver. Still, a brain tumor could certainly cause loss of motor functions, which is sad.

That's about the level of an apology I can muster for Novak.

I Am Now Become Death, Destroyer Of Worlds

Novakula started a new day job as The Grim Reaper this morning, and apparently he's not so good at it:

Syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak was cited by police after he hit a pedestrian with his black Corvette in downtown Washington, D.C., on Wednesday morning [...]

“I didn’t know I hit him. I feel terrible,” a shaken Novak told reporters from Politico and WJLA as he was returning to his car. "He's not dead, that's the main thing." Novak said he was a block away from 18th and K streets Northwest, where the accident occurred, when a bicyclist stopped him and said, "You hit someone." He said he was cited for failing to yield the right of way.

The bicyclist was David Bono, a partner at Harkins Cunningham, who was on his usual bike commute to work at 1700 K St. N.W. when he witnessed the accident.

As he traveled east on K Street, crossing 18th, Bono said a "black Corvette convertible with top closed plowed into the guy. The guy is sort of splayed onto the windshield.”

Bono said that the pedestrian, who was crossing the street on a "Walk" signal and was in the crosswalk, rolled off the windshield and that Novak then made a right into the service lane of K Street. “The car is speeding away. What’s going through my mind is, you just can’t hit a pedestrian and drive away,” Bono said.

I'm thinking the fact that he didn't kill the guy, as Beelzebub commanded, was deeply embarrassing, and Novak wanted to ditch the whole assignment and wanted to get back to the business of destroying careers instead of lives. The Angel of Death is not a high-paying job to begin with, and when you fail in your core function of, you know, causing death, the Great Netherworld temp agency typically calls out for reinforcements.

Satan is really not going to be pleased, Novak's going to have to give him a few column inches this week...

Dean Raking in Big-Donor Dollars

This very heartening story is perfect for a Friday, and I dare say it's a vindication of what we on this site have been doing and saying for a long time. There's of course a long way to go, but when the money men start listening and taking notice, it's a major win.

This is interesting: Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean, who was greeted with intense skepticism by the party's big-money donors at the outset of his tenure, appears on track to bring in far more cash this quarter from those top fundraisers than many expected.

The DNC is on track to haul in roughly $14 million this quarter, approximately $3.8 million of which comes from major donors, who are defined as donors who gave more than $5,000 as an individual or from a PAC, the DNC says. That's a significant jump from the first quarter of 2003 -- the last comparable year -- when the DNC raised only $2.23 million from major donors, according to the DNC's numbers.

Let's take a trip down memory lane...

I don't think a day went by in early 2005 when we didn't hear about how Howard Dean taking over the DNC would lead to its ruin, and in particular that the big-money donors would leave the party in droves. This was a representative sample, and unsurprisingly it came from Robert Novak, to whom DLC types were no doubt running in droves to try and run down Dean:

Dean's chairmanship, thought extremely unlikely when he first indicated his availability three months ago, is itself testimony to his party's aimlessness.

Just as no power broker selected the former Vermont governor as DNC chairman, none is charting a strategy for regaining power. The mindless course leading to Dean's election by acclamation reflects a party adrift, its senior leaders mired in unreality.

Then there were repeated claims that Dean was hurting fundraising, based on first-quarter results after an election year, which isn't exactly charitable. Here's another one from Novak. And here. And here.

Not all of that was actually true, mind you. But the growing perception was that the big-money donors were angry, angry! that unhinged crazy man Howard Dean was running the DNC show. And certainly, it's been well-documented that the D-Trip wasn't exactly happy with the 50-state strategy that Dean implemented.

Whatever, Dean was always able to use the small-money revolution to get the funding he needed to grow the party. But this money coming in now is from the same big donors that were supposedly cool to him.

Top Democratic donor Robert Zimmerman describes the jump in money from the big contributors as "very significant."

"The major donors initially were skeptical of Dean and his 50-state strategy," Zimmerman says. "Dean had to prove the merits and logic of his strategies. But the success of his 50-state strategy certainly has impressed the establishment donor community. Unlike in 2004, when there was an overreliance on 527s that undermined the idea of a strong party structure, the support Dean is receiving from major donors shows a growing recognition among them that a strong DNC is an essential tool for victory in 2008."

Running operations in 2008 through the national party rather than a bunch of loosely connected 527s is going to be much improved for GOTV. And having the field teams in place since 2005 in all 50 states is the main reason why. Add to this the fact that the DCCC under Chris Van Hollen is supportive of Dean's efforts, and you have a much more united party that is using the models of the progressive movement to bring about victory.

Obviously, winning turns a lot of enemies into friends, and turns finger-pointing into handshaking. But let's step back and consider the significance. Howard Dean's victory as DNC Chair was one of the netroots' first major triumphs. We were told that we sabotaged the party. We were told that we just cost the Democrats elections for the next decade. We were told that the big money would dry up. We were told that we needed to steer the party to the middle and resist the angry left tendencies of the former Governor from Vermont.

I believe the password is, vindication.

And do consider giving a little cash to the DNC before tomorrow's deadline, so we can continue to vindicate Howard Dean's strategy of building Democratic infrastructure everywhere.