I hope everyone was able to get their popcorn at the concession stand before the show officially started yesterday.

And what a great opening scene it was.

The Associated Press has the story.

Crooks and Liars has the video.

Goes sumpin' like this:

During a discussion of U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris' chances of being elected to the Senate, Robert Novak stormed off the set of CNN's Inside Politics after calling "bullshit" (literally) on a rib-poking comment from his arch-nemesis, former Clinton aide James Carville.

Which seemed like the usual rib-poking, until you read between the lines.

CARVILLE: [Novak]'s got to show these right wingers that he's got a backbone, you know. It's why the Wall Street Journal editorial page is watching you. Show 'em that you're tough.

NOVAK: Well, I think that's bullshit, and I hate that. Just let it go.

And then he was gone.

Stood up, pulled off his mic, tossed it, he's outta there.

But why would Novak storm off in a discussion of Katherine Harris?

It's the bit about "backbone."

Novak appears to have been first in line to spill the beans about his sources to the grand jury in the CIA leak case, possibly because he honestly believed he had nothing to hide, but more likely because he and Rove colluded on their testimony beforehand. Matt Cooper's notes and testimony have since rendered a lot of their collusion inoperative, and may have further implicated them in a crime.

So a lot of White House apologists are wishing that Novak had kept his big mouth shut right about now, a la Judith Miller, who's still sitting in jail under civil contempt charges.

That's why Carville's "show 'em that you're tough" comment hit home.

It's also clear that the next topic for discussion was to have been the CIA leak case, as host Ed Henry explained afterward:

...And I'm sorry that Bob left the set a little early. I had told him in advance we were going to ask him about the CIA leak case. He was not here for me to be able to ask him about that. Hopefully we'll be able to ask him about that in the future.

So Bob knew it was coming, and most likely was stressing over the large copy of Who's Who in America sitting next to Henry on the news desk during the heated discussion. So what, you say? Well, that's the book Novak claimed he used to discover Valerie Plame's name, under Joseph Wilson's listing, as part of Rove's "I never revealed her name" wink-and-nod, lawyerly, Clintonian defense. Novak knew he was about to be grilled about it, and called on his many contradictory statements about it.

Also weighing heavy on ol' Bob: Republican Senator Arlen Specter is charging Bob with libeling his staffer.

The buzz is that perjury and obstruction of justice indictments in the CIA leak case are just a matter of time.

And that those charges may be the least of it.

So that was the big action opening yesterday.

Starring Bob Novak as himself.

Today, we establish the setting for the rest of the picture:

Approval of Bush's handling of Iraq, which had been hovering in the low- to mid-40s most of the year, dipped to 38 percent. Midwesterners and young women and men with a high school education or less were most likely to abandon Bush on his handling of Iraq in the last six months.

American troops have suffered heavy casualties in Iraq in recent days. On Wednesday, 14 Marines were killed in the Euphrates River valley in the worst roadside bombing targeting Americans since the war began in March 2003.

William Anderson, a retired Republican from Fort Worth, Texas, said Bush "has the right intentions, but he's going about them the wrong way. Iraq is one of the issues that everybody has a problem with," Anderson said."There are some big discussions about it around town. Everybody's got their agreements and disagreements. It seems like there's no end. Is it going to end up another Vietnam?"

Continuing worries about Iraq may do more than drag down Bush's standing with the public. They could become a major issue in the 2006 midterm congressional races, and if the war is still going in 2008, they could be a factor in the presidential race....

A factor in 2006? You bet, if Republicans in Texas are talking truth like William Anderson.

Because it's the trust, stupid:

The drop in the number of people who see Bush as honest was strongest among middle-aged Americans as well as suburban women, a key voting group in the 2004 election. A further erosion of trust could make it tougher for Bush to win support for his policies in Congress and internationally.

"The reason that trust is so important has to do with the long-standing belief that you could trust him, even if you don't always agree with him and don't understand what he's doing," said Bruce Buchanan, a political scientist at the University of Texas. "The honesty dip is partly caused by a loss of faith in his credibility on Iraq."

And the unscientific visual:



Keeping in mind that the "Most E-Mailed" stories on Yahoo are typically the stuff of the science of why men have nipples and teachers licking wounds.

As I write this, the article on the new poll is also the "Most Viewed" and "Most Recommended."

Just sayin'.

And the piece de resistance: this warning from a guy from Georgia named Newt Gingrich, who knows a thing or two about tumultuous mid-term elections:

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) warned fellow Republicans yesterday not to ignore the implications of the party's narrow victory in Tuesday's special election in Ohio, saying the public mood heading into next year's midterm elections appears to helping Democrats and hurting Republicans.

"It should serve as a wake-up call to Republicans, and I certainly take it very seriously in analyzing how the public mood evidences itself," Gingrich said. "Who is willing to show up and vote is different than who answers a public opinion poll. Clearly, there's a pretty strong signal for Republicans thinking about 2006 that they need to do some very serious planning and not just assume that everything is going to be automatically okay."

In Tuesday's special election, Republican U.S. Rep. Schmidt beat out her challenger, Iraq veteran Paul Hackett, by a mere 4 percentage points in a GOP-heavy district that voted for President Bush over Senator Kerry nearly 70-30 in November 2004.

Just sayin'.

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