Robert Novak

The Politico broke it this 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.

And then there is this video:

And to add insult to injury (no pun intended), this has surfaced:

In 2001, he cursed at a pedestrian on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 13th streets Northwest for allegedly jaywalking.

“’Learn to read the signs, [bodily orifice]!’ Novak snapped before speeding away,” according to an item in The Washington Post’s Reliable Source column.

Novak explained to the paper: "He was crossing on the red light. I really hate jaywalkers. I despise them. Since I don't run the country, all I can do is yell at 'em. The other option is to run 'em over, but as a compassionate conservative, I would never do that."

I really think Novakula should get some good community service for this. Not some wishy-washy service, but he should be sentenced to stand out on the side of a road cleaning up garbage. Maybe then he will see how it is to be a pedestrian.

Jeralyn is reporting that this is exactly what Robert Novak was saying on FOX last night:

Bob Novak just said on Fox News that Condoleeza Rice might well be John McCain's running mate.

Is that to provide a hedge against both Obama and Hillary? Or another pundit's attempt to reduce the presidential contest to race and gender?

Now speaking of racism, this really stinks of it, along with sexism. So McCain would only pick Condi because she is a black woman and not because she is qualified? I hope this is another Novak wet dream, as I do have a little respect for John McCain and would hate to think he would insult women, blacks and the office of the vice-President by such a poorly calculated political move.

He is going after the spend happy Republicans.

When House Republicans convene behind closed doors today at the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., they have a chance to make two bold moves to restore their reputation for fiscal responsibility. First, they could declare a one-year moratorium on Republican congressional earmarks. Second, they could name earmark reformer Rep. Jeff Flake to a vacancy on the House Appropriations Committee. In fact, they almost surely will do neither.

Instead, during the retreat Republicans are likely to adopt some limitation on earmarks that will have no public impact and will exert no pressure on the earmark-happy Democratic majority. Consideration of Flake's candidacy for Appropriations was postponed until after this week's earmark debate at the Greenbrier. But, content with a half-measure on earmarks, the House Republicans are unlikely to place Flake, an insistent reformer, in the midst of the pork-dispensing appropriators.

Robert Novak has gone after someone else this time, and it might not be who you would expect. This week, he takes none other than George Bush to the mat. Here are some great parts from it.

"Gonzales never has developed a base of support for himself up here," a House Republican leader told me. But this is less a Gonzales problem than a Bush problem. With nearly two years remaining in his presidency, George W. Bush is alone. In half a century, I have not seen a president so isolated from his own party in Congress -- not Jimmy Carter, not even Richard Nixon as he faced impeachment.

Republicans in Congress do not trust their president to protect them. That alone is sufficient reason to withhold statements of support for Gonzales, because such a gesture could be quickly followed by his resignation under pressure. Rep. Adam Putnam (Fla.), the highly regarded young chairman of the House Republican Conference, praised Donald Rumsfeld in November only to see him sacked shortly thereafter.

[SNIP]

The I-word (incompetence) is also used by Republicans in describing the Bush administration generally. Several of them I talked to cited a trifecta of incompetence: the Walter Reed hospital scandal, the FBI's misuse of the USA Patriot Act and the U.S. attorneys firing fiasco. "We always have claimed that we were the party of better management," one House leader told me. "How can we claim that anymore?"

[SNIP]

Regarding Libby and Gonzales, unofficial word from the White House is not reassuring. One credible source says the president will never -- not even on the way out of office in January 2009 -- pardon Libby. Another equally good source says the president will never ask Gonzales to resign. That exactly reverses the prevailing Republican opinion in Congress. Bush is alone.

So Bush is alone? Perhaps more Republicans need to start echoing that sentiment then. There certainly seems to be enough of them out there supporting Bush to the end. True that could really start changing soon as we get closer to the 2008 elections. But it wasn't Bush alone that brought down the GOP in 2006, it was a combination of Bush and the failed leadership of the GOP in Congress that both lead to their majority demise.

Novak also overlooked other examples of incompetence exhibited by this administration. Here are two big ones - Katrina and Iraq. Iraq is not any closer to being more secure and New Orleans is still in ruins almost 2 years later. Incompetence has followed this President none stop, which is why the other I word needs to come into play with Bush - Impeach. Impeachment is not some sort of punishment for Bush, but rather a needed step for our country to heal and start fixing all that has gone so wrong since he took office.