Yesterday, Senator Richard Durbin, the senior Senator from Illinois, appeared on a local PBS show, where he implied that it was Robert Novak who actually provoked Chicago Mayor Richard Daley into publicly making disparaging comments about Durbin's infamous Guantanamo statement.
Yesterday, Senator Richard Durbin, the senior Senator from Illinois appeared on a local PBS show,
'Chicago Sunday'. The host (Phil Ponce) asked Durbin about
a recent Robert Novak column in which the reptillian rightwinger strongly suggested there is a personal feud brewing between the Chicago mayor, Richard Daley and Durbin. Durbin dismissed that claim as pure fiction pointing out that he and Daley have been colleagues and friends for over 30 years (of course Novak's column did not mention that fact), and that he was even once Daley's lawyer.
The host then asked about Daley's condemnation of Durbin's Guantanamo remarks, which Novak's column implied was evidence of a deeper dislike Daley has for Durbin. The Senator stated that he has met and spoken with the Mayor several times since the incident and that they continue to work closely together. Durbin then repeated the accusation he touched on earlier in the day on another local news program. Robert Novak came to Chicago and met with Daley just one day before Daley made his statement against Durbin. The conversation at the meeting focused around Durbin's comments. Although Durbin didn't say it outright, he made it clear that he thinks Novak met Daley with the express intention of provoking the Mayor into making the disparaging statement.
Several things lend creedence to Durbin's assessment. First, it is a well known fact that Novak has been a persona non gratis at City Hall since the last time he tricked the Mayor into making statements against fellow Democrats in 1995. Novak even admitted that in his column. Then suddenly, after 10 years, Novak felt compelled to make up with Daley at an "off-the-record" lunch, at the same time Durbin was coming under fire for his Guantanamo remarks from the rightwing media machine.
Of course, that lunch was not so "off-the-record" that Novak was prevented from disclosing that Daley's son Patrick, home on leave from Airborne Ranger training, "resented" Durbin's remarks, a revelation which indicates that Novak and Daley were indeed discussing Durbin's comments immediately prior to Daley's statement on the same topic. Finally, several days later, Novak published an incendiary column in which he posits a personal animosity between Durbin and Daley (which both Daley and Durbin claim does not exist), based on an incident which Novak himself may have provoked.
If this is true, it is despicable, even by Novak's lax journalistic standards. He purposely engineered and instigated a political news event, then exaggerated its implications in a published column, which was nothing more than a blatant attempt to sow dissension among Illinois Democrats, and undermine support for Senator Durbin. Those are clearly the actions of a political operative and not a journalist. In fact, many of Novak's recent actions indicate that he is actually an agent of the political arm of the Bush administration. Remember, of the six journalists allegedly approached by the Whitehouse in the Valarie Plame case, only Novak was unethical enough to expose her identity as a CIA operative.
Moreover, Novak "cleared for publication" some out-of-context quotes from Daley, that implied the Mayor was frustrated with the Democratic leadership. Quotes that were, as Novak pointed out, strikingly similar to the ones that got the Lizard King banned from City Hall in the first place. In other words, a decade later, Novak once again tricked the mayor into making disparaging comments about his party colleagues, which Novak published just to rub the mayor's face in it. However, if there is one thing that can be said about hizzonner, it is that he hates to be made a fool in public. Hopefully, it will be at least another decade before Novak's shadow is allowed to once more darken the doorstep of City Hall.