J$P Instant Transcript! Robert Novak makes his first appearance as a Fox News Contributor, discussing Tom DeLay, the rivals for his post, and Israel's Ariel Sharon.

From Fox News Live, January 8 2006:

JAMIE COLBY [FOX NEWS]: Joining me now, a special treat, someone who has covered some of the biggest stories in Washington in his long and distinguished career. Syndicated columnist, and we are glad to say Fox News Contributor, Bob Novak. Bob, let me be the first to welcome you on the air to Fox.

ROBERT NOVAK [FOX NEWS]: It's my pleasure; thank you, Jamie.

COLB Y: And it's great to be with you. So we hear the announcement yesterday in Sugarland Texas. We hear from Tom DeLay here again today, exclusively here on Fox, that he wants his leadership replaced and replaced quickly. What's the buzz in Washington? What's going on behind the scenes?

NOVAK: Well behind the scenes, the Republicans in the House almost unanimously had decided that Tom DeLay just had to step down. It was not a viable situation to have him hanging out there. The speaker, Speaker Hastert, is going with several prominent Republicans on a trip to Asia, I believe it's starting tomorrow or Tuesday. Be back in a week, and it was decided there would be an election shortly thereafter. So Tom DeLay, if he had, he did the gracious thing to get out, make it less uncomfortable, but he was going to be replaced anyway. Because his only hope of staying on was to beat the rap on these indictments by a very political Democratic District Attorney down in Austin, Ronnie Earle. He couldn't get that situation cleaned up expeditiously, and that's what sunk him.

COLB Y: So let's talk about some of the names that are being bantered around. There are basically three names that continue to come out, one of whom, it was John Boehner actually, earlier today on Fox, saying that he wants the job. You also have Roy Blunt and you have Congressman Jerry Lewis. So who do you see as a front-runner, and have we missed someone?

NOVAK: Yes you have; I'll get to that in a second. John Boehner, very interesting. A little background. John Boehner and Tom DeLay were both part of a plot to get rid of Newt Gingrich way back in 1995. It failed. Tom DeLay admitted it and he was kept on. Boehner, who was then Chairman of the House Republican Conference, didn't admit it, and he defeated by JC Watts for that Office. But Boehner has worked his way back as Chairman of the House Workforce Committee. He's done a good job. Boehner is much more of a cool, get-along go-along, old-fashioned type of politician. Much less confrontational than Tom DeLay, or Newt Gingrich for that matter. Roy Blunt is not very confrontational either, but he is a DeLay man, his deputy. I think his problem is, people think he's done a pretty good job as acting majority leader. But whether they think they have to close the book and he's too close to Tom DeLay, I don't know. I don't think Jerry Lewis, who is the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, is going to do it. The very dark horse, and I mean it's dark, is Mike Pence, who is Chairman of the Republican Study Committee, the very conservative group. Mike has become quite a force. He's gotten the House Republicans to make a project of trying to cut down on these earmarks and the pork barrel spending. It may be too early for Pence, but he is a dark horse possibility....

COLB Y: Bob, let me ask you, as you look at this situation in Israel, and you look at President Bush's plan for peace in this term, the impact, obviously, tremendous of Ariel Sharon not participating politically. But do you see anyone else that can "pull it off"?

NOVAK: No, I don't really see anybody who can do it. And nobody knew exactly what Prime Minister Sharon was up to. He's a very clever politician, and he had always been a hard liner, very much opposed to a Palestinian state. Obviously he didn't want to get into a confrontational situation with the United States and President Bush. So he changed, he alienated a lot of the hard liners in the Licud Party, left his party, went into a, set up a centrist organization. Just what he had in mind, however, what he was going to do with the Palestinians, what the Palestinian state was going to be like, was uncertain. So I think you have absolute confusion, and nobody can say that they would follow Sharon's course, because nobody knew what Sharon's course was.