Punditry

WaPo takes readers inside the home George Stephanopoulos and Ali Wentworth in today's Home section.

Most interesting? The custom living room carpet that Wentworth refurbished with a $2.00 box of fabric dye. She says, "citing the poor economy," George declined her suggestion to replace the rug ruined by the couple's dog.

The news industry must be pretty shaky if Stephanopoulos won't stimulate.

Check out the article on WaPo.com.

So Bob Novak is doing the whole donating-money-to-charity-to-prove- I'm-not-the-devil thing. Today's gift of $1.25 million establishes a chair in his honor at his alma mater, the University of Illinois.

The chair in Western civilization and culture will be first held by classicist Jon Solomon, who will be known as Novak Professor Jon Solomon. How's that for an honor?

In the article, we also learn some of Novak's favorite books:

The Republic, Plato
The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli
The Book of the Courtier, Baldassare Castiglione
Paradise Lost, John Milton
Works of Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Geoffrey Chaucer

Really? We NEVER would have guessed that Novak is a fan of the manipulative, back-stabbing, personification-of-power-hungry Machiavelli.

There aren't that many people who get asked in an interview whether they're the Anti-Christ. You can add Bob Novak to that list now.

The Hill's Betsy Rothstein recently sat down with Novak for a short profile, and offers up a classic description of the "Prince of Darkness":

"Novak's office on Pennsylvania Avenue a few blocks from the White House suits him. The lobby is elegant, but the office is not. It's small, cramped, disheveled. Its resident looks as though he's just blown in from a gale, even though the day is sunny and clear. His white hair is in perpetual motion, with a tuft flying about. His extra-bushy eyebrows are at odds--one up, one down.

"Novak, 75, in black trousers, a white button-down shirt and black suspenders over an ample gut, says, 'I don't do any exercise. None. I don't like to exercise. I don't think it's necessary. A lot of people think it's necessary. I think it shortens their lives. It's one of the problems with the world today. People spend too much time exercising and not enough time thinking.'"

So there you have it: Spending time on the treadmill is bad for you. On the other hand, think of how much worse it would be for you to see Novak in spandex on the ellipticals next to you at Washington Sports Club (although he's probably more The Sports Club/LA type anyhow).

And, for the record, Novak denies being the Antichrist.

In today's Washington Examiner, Brookings Institution Journalist in Residence (and former White House Press Secretary under Gerald Ford) Ron Nessen has a recommendation for political pundits in his piece titled, "The 10 Worst Things About Washington, And How To Fix Them":

3. PUNDITS. Calculate their batting average for erroneous predictions and faulty analysis (most are hitting around .200). Superimpose this batting average on the screen whenever they appear on TV.

But Rambling Without Repercussions is so much more fun (and profitable)!

(And, for Pete's sake: Don't tell our Final Four political pundits that they may be held accountable...)

Arianna Huffington gives us her list of things she won't miss about 2005.

Some notables:

• That the New York Times held off running the NSA spying story for
  over a year.

• Jeff Gannon, White House correspondent -- aka Jeff Guckert, hotmilitarystud.com.

• Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Viveca Novak: The Three Media Stooges of Plamegate

• That voters could have gone to the polls in 2004 knowing that Bush was spying on Americans, that a key White House aide was charged with felonies, and that the initial reasons for invading Iraq were bogus -- but didn’t, thanks to the timidity of the mainstream media.

Wonkette serves up a list (and is fielding recommendations) of words and phrases that she'd like to see banned in 2006 (with many that are all too familiar among media-types). See the full list here.

We're particularly eager to see these nominees fall by the wayside.

• Scalito
  
• "You're in the Situation Room"
  
• "Ongoing investigation"
  
• Plamegate
  
• "Double super secret"
  
• "Personal waiver"

Some other terms we'd like to see pass: "Douchebag for Liberty." "Miller Time." "TimesSelect."

Okay, we're just dreaming on that last one...

(Clearly on a Humor Roll today, Wonkette--discussing the PR Week story we alluded to below--also whips up "The top ten other things that Scott should not mistake for respect.")

Former President Bush still emails her.
Michael Douglas once dated her.
She's one of the "cool kids" at the NYTimes.
She's had her mug all over the place recently.
A recent New York magazine profile said that "men can't resist her."

The incessant praise makes us recall a fitting quote from one Sir Mix A Lot: "Give me a sista, I can't resist her."

Well, maybe men can't resist Maureen Dowd, but Slate's Katie Roiphe certainly can. In her piece, "Is Maureen Dowd Necessary?" Roiphe takes exception to the recent Dowd Love Fest and takes down Dowd's new book, "Are Men Necessary?"

• "Dowd pushes every statement to its most exaggerated form"
  
• "Dowd relies on the faux journalism of women's magazines."
  
• "Dowd is pretending to cover cultural trends with journalistic accuracy, and it is this pretense that gives her arguments a shoddy feel."

Seriously: Can someone please tell Christopher Hitchens to get rid of that blue shirt?

Days before his column goes behind the $$$$ wall, the NYT's John Tierney sat down with the fun gang over at Reason Magazine for a dicussion of libertarian values and his vision as one of the designated liberal-haters on the op-ed page.

It begins with a classic question thought by many an interviewer: "I see you've got Reason lying on your side table there; is that like the awful wedding present put out on the mantle when Aunt Millie comes to visit, or are you a reader?"

Then eventually they get around to the good stuff: "One could probably sum up in a sentence or two what, generally, Maureen Dowd or Tom Friedman or Paul Krugman do, but you don't seem to have an obvious schtick or beat."

Tierney: "I don't really have a beat the way some columnists do. I guess I tend, maybe too often, to write things from a libertarian outlook, but I want to do stuff that isn't really political. I like writing about science and social science; I like trying to do humor, writing about stuff in daily life. I at one point wanted to be a mathematician. My father's a college professor and that kind of life appealed to me. But I ended up in journalism because I just realized I'm too much of a dilettante. I majored in American Studies, so you can do history and English--I'm just not much of a specialist; I like to dabble in different things."

As for his reaction to starting the column? "I think everyone who starts in this job is surprised by how much animus you can inspire, how many people have the time and energy to tell you what a dolt you are."

We imagine it's a particularly big problem for David Brooks...

The Smoking Gun has a wonderful collection of complaint letters sent to CNN following Robert Novak's August 4th outburst on CNN's "Inside Politics."

Some highlights:

> "What if my pregnant friend was here watching at the time?"
> "Novak was obviously drunk, surly and he swore...before he staggered off the set."
> "If Janet Jackson's private parts can cause brain damage in children, what will it do to them to see a grown man have a temper tantrum?"

No word yet on when, if ever, the Prince of Darkness will return to the Situation Room.