In case you haven't yet heard: Bob appears to have blown a gasket: While having a seemingly normal chat with Carville on CNN earlier today, he suddenly muttered that something was "bullshit" and then walked off the set. The show's host then noted that he had been about to ask Novak something about his role in the outing of Valerie Plame. Now, Novak recently wrote that he learned of Plame's exact name by flipping through "Who's Who in America." Kevin Drum has the backstory and explains why that is quite likely bullshit.
Meanwhile, Mickey Kaus just points to a screen shot of the CNN segment and notices a big reddish brown book sitting next to the host. Could that be "Who's Who in America?" Mickey wonders. Which brings us to my investigative reporting contribution to this discussion. Take a good look at that screen shot with that big reddish book. Then take a look at "Who's Who in America"--a big reddish brown book.
UPDATE: Either Mickey updated his post or I just didn't read it carefully at first (right, I'm guessing it's the latter too). In any case: Mickey flagged the color coordination.
All the possible answers to The Why Did He Walk Off? question seem a bit off.
Admittedly, I read a bunch of reasons why long before I watched the video clip. What I expected was to see something which fit what I already read.
Has anyone not goofed up in public and said something that they shouldn't have uttered?
It seems like Novak took great umbrage to the notion that the WSJ ed. board was "watching him". Why that board would be watching him is probably pretty important. And, likely is a part of converstations between Carville and Novak which we won't know about unless one or both talk about it.
So, when Novak called BS, it took him a while to realize that he literally said Bullshit on live TV.
My point is the book was on the table the entire time. It was likely on the table before the show went live, too. So, the book is a red herring. Well, OK, a reddish-brown herring. The accusation that elicited the cursing and Novak's realization that he cursed was most likely why he skeedattled.
It is too bad we won't hear what he had to say about Who's Who and Plame though.
Posted by: ! | August 05, 2005 at 05:11 AM
You may well be right. It looks like Plame's name is in Who's Who:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_31.php#006233
Posted by: eric umansky | August 05, 2005 at 12:18 PM
I agree that his behavior doesn't seem to have been adequately explained. From what I've read, Who's Who in fact has a reference to Plame, so Novak's story would seem to check out, at least on that level. So if the book spooked him, why? Given that Novak's been on TV for years and to my knowledge is not one to let the profanity fly, it must be something pretty good.
Posted by: RM | August 05, 2005 at 12:21 PM
I just read Mickey and he has a pretty believable explanation:
[Why wouldn't Novak want to say whether he in fact got Plame's name from Who's Who?--ed He might not want to get pinned down on that point, because the truthful answer would be "no." (If it was "yes," wouldn't Novak have written that he'd in fact gotten the name from the book, instead of writing merely that the name "could" be found there?)
http://slate.msn.com/id/2123825/&#running
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