Sorry for playing catch-up here. Being four hours behind eastern time, with poor web access really makes me feel like I’m in Siberia (which isn’t that far from here).

Anyway, without having read all of the commentary, I’d say two things are obvious. Novak screwed up. James Carville is obnoxious. The news here is that Novak screwed up. That it’s understandable, human, enjoyable, etc., but doesn’t change the fact that Novak gets paid large dollars to tolerate people like Carville. If you don’t like Carville or don’t think he’s professional or polite, the time to take a stand isn’t after nearly a decade of being on TV with him. Obviously, Carville is full of the bovine excrement to which Novak alluded, but that’s pretty much irrelevant. CNN was right to punish him and Novak was right to apologize. It would be nice, in the aftermath of all this, if it dawned on the executives at CNN that Carville’s presence on their network does them little credit. But my guess is CNN will continue its bold record of learning the wrong lessons from everything it does.