Robert Novak of the permanently arched eyebrows, the so-called Prince of Darkness (cue: Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor), was journalistically raked over the coals last month for his controversial column stating that the Clinton campaign was spreading dirt in Democratic circles against Senator Barack Obama. The Obama campaign responded to the charge online with an uncharacteristic intensity. The Clinton camp denied it with ferocity. And the press generally blasted Novak over the weakness of the sourcing in the story.

Novak, who has a sterling reputation as a journalist (if not as a New Age sensitive guy), returns to the scene of the smear. Clinton Spokesman Howard Wolfson's appearance on ''Face The Nation'' asking Obama to shut down his leadership PAC from which he was handing out thousands of dollars to local Democratic groups in early primary states has apparently freed up Novak to revisit the issue. Today, Novak writes:

''...(A) Democrat, not on Clinton's Senate or campaign staffs but close to her, a month ago approached a party activist who has not made a commitment with this message: Skeletons in Obama's closet would make him vulnerable if nominated. He didn't elaborate and said the Clinton campaign would keep its anti-Obama information to itself.

''The Clinton campaign denied all this, claiming a GOP plot. In truth, I haven't talked to a single Republican in my reporting of attacks on Obama. In the wake of these denials, Wolfson made public his slush-fund accusation on 'Face the Nation,' shortly after polls showed Obama passing Clinton for Iowa's Jan. 3 caucuses ...''

Ironically, Bill Shaheen, the husband of Jeanne Shaheen, who was a $5,000 beneficiary of Obama's Pac and the co-chair of Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire campaign, today brought up the even sleazier issue of the Illinois Senator's oft-discussed drug use. Hold on to your seatbelts, folks: campaign season is only getting started.