During Monday’s speech in the Hinckley Caucus Room, Joe Wilson said, per his wife’s request, he no longer refers to Bob Novak as a “douche bag.”

Novak identified Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, as a CIA operative in a 2003 column, beginning an investigation into who leaked her name.

Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, has since been indicted on perjury and obstruction of justice.

“Bob Novak is not in jail because he sang like a canary to the Grand Jury,” Wilson said. “He is a denizen of the deep who crumbled like a cookie.”

However, Wilson said Novak is a small fry in the grand scheme of things who was only doing someone else’s bidding.

At one point during Monday’s speech, the lights were accidentally turned off in the Hinckley Caucus Room, prompting Wilson to exclaim, “Is Karl Rove in the audience?”

Steve Gehrke