As Inside Politics signed off and Wolf Blitzer Reports began, CNNers were already buzzing about Robert Novak. "What was wrong with him?" "What set him off?" A CNN insider says "even Wolf was curious."

"Hopefully this will finally give CNN an excuse to dump him from the network," the trusted staffer e-mailed this morning. "The fact is, he probably should have been canned a long time ago. It is a bit silly that for revealing the identity of a CIA agent, CNN does nothing to him...but for using a swear word, oh, THEN we suspend Novak (and most likely will get rid of him, as public pressure continually mounts)."

More: "The fact is, everyone around here knows that Novak has been nothing but a blight on this network for years, and especially since the Plame issue erupted. There are plenty of rational minded, decent conservatives out there that CNN could use in place of him..."

> Another e-mailer wonders: Did Novak snaps because he "wants to get out of his contract now that all CNN's expressly political programming is gone?"