I saw Satan buying a snowblower at Home Depot

This may be the most astounding piece of video you'll see all year. It shows Bob "Prince of Darkness" Novak actually correcting himself for a LIE he came out with earlier in the week.

Novak had claimed that no less a liberal icon than Howard Dean had claimed a week ago that if Social Security was not addressed now, benefits would lose 80% of their present value in thirty years.

What Dean ACTUALLY said, in a speech at Cornell University, was that if Social Security were left alone for 30 years, its benefits would be reduced to 80 percent of what they are now.

Novakula, of course, did NOT mention that Dean had also said:

"I think that privatizing Social Security has much more to do with the enormous amount of money that corporate Wall Street poured into the President of the United States's campaign than [helping] senior citizens," Dean said. "[Social Security] was a response toward [overcoming] abject poverty...it is not meant as a retirement program...it was meant as a social safety net for people who had reached the end of their working careers and did not deserve, after a long lifetime of dignified work, to live in poverty. ... It's not supposed to be a pension."

What surprises me is that there was enough to take out of context in what Dean DID say that he didn't have to resort to outright lying (or displaying his own stupidity, take yer pick). He COULD have said "It's not supposed to be a pension", and said that Dean had alluded to the fact that people also have to save for their own retirement, and accomplished the same thing (even though what Dean means is that Social Security is that thing wingnuts hate most -- a social safety net to ensure that aged Americans can live in something approaching dignity. (Amazing how conservatives have no problem with old people being penniless and living on the street, and they call themselves "pro-life". I guess being old and homeless is regarded by them as a just punishment for not making it in their Darwinist vision. And by the way, while we're on the subject, how come wingnuts reject Darwin when it flies in the face of the Bible, but embrace him on social policy? Just wondering.)

But a chastened Novak appeared with the equally whorish Judy Woodruff on Inside Politics the other day and issued a correction. Crooks and Liars has the video.

(And if you can spare a few shekels, you might want to toss them into C&L's tip jar. Scroll down the right-hand column till you see the "make a donation" button. C&L is the best source around for those priceless clips most of us don't have time to watch, let alone record, and bandwidth costs money. And while you're at it, why not toss some in John Aravosis' direction as well. Without him, a hooker would still be sitting in the White House press room every day uttering polemics disguised as questions. He's about as close to an investigative reporter as we have right now.)

Anyway, of course, since he's Bob Novak, he still had to get in his "I was right anyway" moment, by saying that Dean was still not toeing the party line.

He IS still Bob Novak, after all.