That is, doing Rove’s dirty work for him.
When you put Novak’s anti-Lieberman colum…
McCain backers, plus McCain himself, would pick the pro-choice liberal from Connecticut if they thought they could get away with it.
But they can’t get away with it — and this has been made clear to McCain by none other than Joe Lieberman himself.
Lieberman surely doesn’t know that much about Republican politics, but he has close Republican friends. One of them prevailed on Lieberman to tell McCain that a McCain-Lieberman ticket would be a disaster for all concerned, and especially for the GOP.
…Together with the Politico story on Rove’s involvement in the anti-Lieberman campaign…
Republican strategist Karl Rove called Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) late last week and urged him to contact John McCain to withdraw his name from vice presidential consideration, according to three sources familiar with the conversation.
Lieberman dismissed the request, these sources agreed.
Lieberman "laughed at the suggestion and certainly did not call [McCain] on it," said one source familiar with the details.
"Rove called Lieberman," recounted a second source. "Lieberman told him he would not make that call."
[snip]
The column said Lieberman had made that clear to McCain personally at the behest of a "close friend," but a Lieberman source called that "totally and absolutely false."
Reached by phone, Novak would say only: "I don’t talk about my sources."
…It becomes pretty clear that Rove’s the guy who told Novak Lieberman was told to tell McCain not to select him.
Or, in other words, Lieberman refused to do as Rove wanted (after all that help beating Ned Lamont, Joe? Where’s your gratitude?), so Rove just told Novak Lieberman had done so anyway.
Man, Novak’s getting abused by his sources over and over these days. Again, where’s the gratitude?