You may remember Ed Henry as a former reporter from CNN who now works for Fox. Today he earned a Roger Ailes gold star in movement conservatism during Obama's Thursday presser with South Korea's Myung-Bak :

Fox News Chief White House Correspondent Ed Henry experienced a tense moment with President Obama during a Thursday press conference. The President held a joint press conference with Lee Myung-Bak, President of South Korea. Ed Henry had the first question of the conference and asked Obama if he considered the alleged Iranian assassination plot to be "an act of war."

Henry decided to quote a Mitt Romney statement from last week when asking for the President's plans to address Iran's alleged terror plot. Henry asked the President "what specific steps will you take to hold Iran accountable? Especially when Mitt Romney charged last week, quote, 'If you do not want America to be the strongest nation on Earth, I am not your President. You have that president today.'"

Obama paused and answered, "Well I did not know you were the spokesman for Romney," and smiled down at Henry.

Henry discussed the exchange with Megyn Kelly on her show and defended his decision to quote Mitt Romney in his question. “I was trying to put it in the broader context of not just Mitt Romney, but there are a lot of Republicans out there who would charge that this president leads from behind," he said. "...Instead, he decided to go after me a little bit."

Henry has clashed repeatedly with Obama's spokesman, Jay Carney.

He went on and complained to Megyn Kelly. But shilling for Mitt Romney's position on the situation and quoting him because he's the Fox News preferred choice as GOP 2012 presidential challenger is pretty pathetic.

Time for Robert Novak to Feel Some Chill

via Jay Rosen: "I, for one, have had it with Robert Novak. And if all the journalists who are talking today about "chilling effects" and individual conscience mean what they say, they will, as a matter of conscience and pride, start giving Novak himself the big chill...read on"

It's about time somebody starts beating the drum to silence that arrogant, smug bastard. (Here's the video of Robert with Ed Henry trying to be the victim in the Plame game.) I was able to get Novak to apologize on the air twice by simply getting off my ass and raising some hell to CNN. What will it take for the journalistic community to do the same?

As Jay says, "how can they look at anybody with a straight face and say they are concerned for future whistle blowers if one of their own, Robert Novak, together with sources made possible an act of retribution against an actual whistle blower?" Wasn't it Novak who started the rumors flying about Rhenquist?

I'm glad my version of the Ed Henry thing was a little too off-color for open thread because this one is great. From The Full Ginsburg. Open thread below...

At his presser today President Bush was asked by CNN's Ed Henry whether he had mentioned the Saudi rape case at all during conversations with King Abdullah in the past few weeks.

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Bush begins his answer with a supposedly heartfelt 'what if it was my daughter' explanation but then when pressed further says that he doesn't remember whether he ever brought the subject up or not but insists the Saudi King “knows our position loud and clear.”

Henry: On another issue of credibility in the Mid East -- At the Annapolis Summit you used your influence to get Saudi Arabia to the table but I wonder whether now you will use you influence to do something about the Saudi rape case that has gotten so much international attention? What goes through your mind when you hear about a 19 year old Saudi woman getting gang raped by seven men and basically a Saudi court blames the victim and sentences her to 200 lashes? You spoke to King Abdullah by telephone in the last couple of weeks. Did you press him on this case? If so what did you say and if not, are you giving him a pass?"

Bush: My first thoughts were these. What happens if this happened to my daughter? How would I react? And I would have been -- I would have been very emotional, of course. I’d have been angry at those who committed the crime, and I would be angry at the state that didn’t support the victim, and our opinions were expressed by Dana Perino from the podium.

Henry: Did you press King Abdullah about it personally?

Bush: I talked to King Abdullah about the Middle eastern peace. I don't remember if that subject came up.

Henry: If it was that important to you why wouldn't you at that level bring it directly up to King Abdullah?

Bush: There's plenty of time. He knows our position loud and clear.

Even after considering 'what if' the victim was his own daughter, apparently Bush decided it really wasn't important enough to even bring up after all.

Ed Henry and Bush certainly think so as does the FBI in Philly...

In another great Cafferty moment-Jack connects the dots and wonders why the new lobbyist reformer that replaces a corrupt leader rents an apartment from a lobbyist?

Cafferty: These guys are either arrogant or stupid and neither of those is a good thing if you're going to be the House majority leader--am I missing something here? Where's the reform part? I wonder how long this guy is going to last.

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Wolf: You did hear Ed Henry say that it is a basement apartment which is not necessarily all that desirable---

Cafferty: Yea...and pigs fly upside down and the moon is made of green cheese and there's no quid pro quo from a lobbyist who is also your landlord. Do I look like I just fell out of the back of a vegetable truck to you?

Wolf: No, you look like Jack Cafferty...

I have to believe that Wolf is purposefully playing the straight man at the end. I mean he couldn't be serious, right?

Ed Henry is reporting on CNN that Dennis Hastert is in talks to push out Bob Ney from his position as the Chairman of the Committee on House Administration. He's the second casualty from the Scorpion Jack Abramoff scandal.

Update: Hotline has the story: "House Speaker Dennis Hastert has asked Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) to step down from his post as chairman of the House Administration Committee, three sources with knowledge of the request said today...read on"

I thought they would be a joke because Lindsey Graham was leading the charge with Alito. He should have been kicked off the group if they actually were serious about principles, but obviously that would never had happened.

Reddhedd has an update in which she says that Ed Henry is full of it...

"Gang, I am getting very conflicting information on the Gang of 14 story from Ed Henry. What I'm hearing is that they aren't meeting until 3:30 pm today and that the Dems in the group are split on how they will vote -- which means that cloture is still very much up in the air. I'm beginning to smell a GOP story plant with Ed Henry at CNN...read on

Harry Reid shuts down the Senate

You can see Harry Reid ask to shut down the Senate. Bill Frist becomes unglued.

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Ed Henry does a nice job out of outlining what happened. Jack Cafferty gets off some monumental blasts about the garbage that was passed on to us by the administration leading up to the war. I'm glad Harry Reid blasted Pat Roberts over the negligent way he has been handling his job at getting to the bottom of the bad intelligence and how it was used. Why this was not done before the election is a travesty.

John says: "This just knocked Judge Alito off his game. The story is now the Democrats showing balls on national security. Reid just changed the subject from Judge Alito to the White House's scandals on Iraq and the RoveGate CIA leaks. Absolutely brilliant.

Arthur says: "We may finally have an opposition party again. And just in the nick of time."

Trent Lott: Keystone Cops

This morning, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) wrote a letter to intelligence committee chairmen about the recent leak of information to the Washington Post about secret CIA detention centers in Europe.

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As was reported earlier, Lott told Ed Henry that he thinks it was republicans that leaked it. Frist said that he didn't sign the letter earlier, but it looks like he did now. This saga is like one of those old silent movies. The likely scenario will be that the republicans will say they are so principled that they will investigate even their own on this one. Time for the keystone cops to go to a couple of ethics classes too.