I had one conversation with Robert Novak back in 1995. I had heard that he was a registered Democrat, which I disbelieved, and, finding myself alone in an elevator with Novak, I took an opportunity to ask him about the rumor. Indeed, he had registered Democrat--but for the sole purpose of voting for Marion Barry for mayor of Washington in the district's primary election. I almost couldn't believe what I was hearing. As a great political reporter, Novak knew what made great copy. In voting for Marion Barry, who had famously been caught in flagrante with a crack pipe and a woman other than his wife just a few years before, Novak, one supposes, was voting the interests of his profession. His profession, it seems, is, if not a dying one, than a shifting one. A newspaperman in a television age, Novak, in his last years, was truly anachronistic--in his trademark three-piece suits--as a newspaperman in an internet age. Novak combined with Rowland Evans to write a long running political column, and, despite being the polar opposite of what you typically see on Fox News every day, pioneered the art of the political talk show as an early panelist on Crossfire, Capital Gang, and The McLaughlin Group. In his last years, the Washington-based Chicago Sun Times scribe found himself involved in numerous controversies, including as a central player in the Valerie Plame affair, as a conservative against the Iraq War, and, immediately preceding his brain cancer diagnosis, as an unwitting participant in a hit-and-run accident that left antagonists feeling vindicated about their dark view of the "Dark Prince"--until the journalist's medical condition instead revealed something dark about those taking a dark view of the Dark Prince. Robert Novak, rest in peace.
Wasn't a fan necessarily. Good writer though and sad to see another from a bygone era go.
A few interesting articles on Novak:
1) Regarding his conversion to Catholicism (though written with a slightly snide attitude)
http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/people/4730.html
2)Another one, that's a bit more friendly:
http://catholiconline.org/politics/story.php?id=34267&page=1
3) An article I came across recently that reminded me of my own experience with the huge wall that looms on the eastern edge of Jerusalem. I don't know of many other conservatives that were willing to call Israel out on its persecution of EVERYONE, not just the Palestinians, and treat that damn wall as what it is: a prison. If you ever have the chance to go to Israel, go see it for yourself. The injustice of it is striking and self-evident.
http://palsolidarity.org/2006/07/1331
She's a Carney
Small hands, smells like cabbage
Great man, great reporter, great guy.
