Remember Robert Novak? Two years ago, he did a little thing called "publish the name of an undercover CIA agent." Yes, Bob Novak is the Republican sleazeball who "leaked" Valerie Plame's name -- though he maintains that he didn't know that was he was doing was wrong at the time. Novak is a neo-con lapdog on the order of Sean Hannity, pushing the administration's agenda every day of the week.

Writing in his home newspaper, The Chicago Sun-Times, Novak insists that the biggest obstacle to a conservative Supreme Court ... is George Bush! Novak writes:

Conservatives who have spent more than a decade planning for this moment to change the balance of power on the Supreme Court are reeling from blows delivered by two dissimilar political leaders: Edward M. Kennedy and George W. Bush. Sen. Kennedy has succeeded with the news media in establishing a new standard of ''mainstream conservatism'' for a justice. President Bush has put forth ''friendship'' as a qualification for being named to the high court.

Bush is by far the bigger obstacle in the way of a conservative court. While Kennedy's ploy presents a temporary problem, Bush's stance could be fatal. The right's morale was devastated by the president's comments in a USA Today telephone interview published on the newspaper's front page Tuesday: ''Al Gonzales is a great friend of mine. When a friend gets attacked, I don't like it.''

Why does the Supreme Court have to be "conservative" or "liberal"? Isn't it enough that they come in at 8 in the morning, interpret the law, and go home? Why must they adhere to a particular political ideology when interpreting the law? Novak and others like him use the term "conservative" contemptuously when talking about Sandra Day O'Connor since, unlike Scalia or Thomas, O'Connor was a conservative who did not put conservatism ahead of interpreting the law! Where Novak would like a new Supreme Court justice to advance conservative political and moral ideals, any Supreme Court justice worth his or her salt would not come to the court ready to interpret the law through the lens of a particular political ideology, but rather, through the law itself.

Talk about activist judges! Neo-cons want Supreme Court justices who will take an activist approach in the conservative direction. They would like to use the court to re-write laws in ways that are favorable to neo-cons!

For leaking the name of an undercover CIA agent in an attempt to punish a critic of the Bush administration, for suggesting that the Supreme Court should have an overt political bent, and for being a general sleazeball, Bob Novak is a SEDHE Villain of the Forever.