Now, I haven’t made up my mind about Delay yet. I think it is obvious that there is a liberal campaign to “get Delay.” But that doesn’t mean he’s not guilty…. of something. So far, I haven’t seen anything that scandalizes me, let alone makes me think he should resign. But I have to admit, these kinds of stories where good-government types wig-out about junkets always leave me cold. Obviously, many liberals really do think there’s a real story here. And just as obviously, many Democrats want to tear the guy down. Ultimately, both (overlapping) camps will need real facts to get what they want.

Again, one only needs to see old stories on the front page of the Post and the Times or listen to the “how long can Delay last?” conversations on NPR, to appreciate there’s a get Delay movement afoot. But I think Bob Novak’s “gotchya” on this is unpersuasive.

His column today in the Washington Post claims that the fact the New York Times op-ed page tried to get Bob Livingston to write an op-ed calling for Delay to resign just isn’t shocking in my book. As David Broder said a long time ago, political journalism is basically a fight-promoting business. The news value in an op-ed from Livingston only exists if he calls on Delay to resign. Now, I suppose if you buy into the fiction that the New York Times op-ed page isn’t liberal this effort might be more shocking. But surely Bob Novak isn’t surprised. Look at it this way, I sincerely doubt that NR would have hesitated to have any prominent Democrat endorse Bush in 2004 in its pages. The New Republic went out of its way to find conservatives for Kerry. Heck, I’d be shocked if the Times didn’t run at least one op-ed from a Democrat calling on Jim Wright to resign. Op-ed pages have ideological bents, sure. But they also like to create buzz.

I also suppose there’s a certain tackiness in how the Times asked Livingston. It sounds like they said something to the effect of “We’d love an op-ed from you — assuming you don’t hold the barbaric position that Delay should stay.” But at the end of the day, so what?

Note Just to head-off email, Novak’s column in the Post has been updated to account for the fact that Chris Shays called for Delay to step down. I’ve linked to Chicago Sun-Times version which doesn’t.