Alex Koppelman: Various rememberances of Robert Novak
[Alex Koppelman is a staff writer for the online magazine Salon.com]
Conservative columnist Robert Novak died Tuesday of cancer at the age of 78. Known most recently for his involvement in the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame, Novak was a famed Washington insider and reporter for decades. Here's a look at how Washington and the media world are already reacting to his death.
Washington Post: "He was a committed conservative, but he was not easy to characterize. He supported tax cuts, small government, supply-side economics, military strength, free trade and liberal immigration, while opposing the Iraq war and often being highly critical of Israel -- or at least its policy with regard to Palestinians ... Much of what he wrote was not so much ideological as it was simply telling ... Mr. Novak spent much time in his final years fending off accusations of perfidy for revealing the name of CIA 'operative' Valerie Plame in a column on her husband's criticism of Bush administration policy on Iraq. It was never clear why a writer who opposed the war would be colluding with the administration on the matter (this was the gist of the accusations), and as the story played out, that wasn't the way it happened. Mr. Novak said that, looking back on it -- all the struggle, legal expenses, acrimony and pain caused to others -- he might have done well to leave that somewhat peripheral disclosure out of his column. Looking back on Mr. Novak's career as a reporter who relished reporting what he'd found out and couldn't even contemplate retirement from all the combat it provoked, we kind of doubt he would have."
Eleanor Clift, Newsweek: "On television, we were rarely on the same side. Bob Novak reveled in his hardline views. I was one of those bleeding-heart liberals whose views he routinely ridiculed. It was the mid-'80s, and we would sometimes drive out together on Friday afternoons to the NBC studio to tape The McLaughlin Group. The top would be down on his LeBaron convertible, and he always wore his Chicago Cubs cap. I considered him a friend, and he was instrumental in getting me on the show, which at the time was all male."
Chicago Sun-Times: "We at the Sun-Times will remember Bob as a generous friend and colleague, a tireless workhorse, an innovator in journalism and an example of how to practice our profession. His most enduring legacy, though, may well be his work to pass down generation to generation his love of this country, its traditions and its values that guided his life and work."
Al Hunt, Bloomberg News executive editor: "He was wrong on everything, but we had such incredible fun ... Bob couldn't have been a lawyer or a professor — you can't imagine Bob as anything else besides the kind of hell-raising journalist that he was. Bob didn't hide his views as a dyed-in-the-wool conservative. But he was incredibly hard on hypocrisy from the right. He never cared much that he wasn't invited to White House dinners, even by Republicans — it was almost a point of pride."
Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff: Novak was "a good friend and a fine reporter. We spent many hours talking about the ins and out of Washington and Chicago politics together, and I will miss his friendship greatly."
Adam Bernstein, Washington Post: "He earned [the nickname 'Prince of Darkness'] in the early 1960s for what he called his swarthy looks, poor skills as a raconteur and 'grim-visaged demeanor.' He said that his unsmiling pessimism was a stark contrast with the upbeat spirit of the Kennedy administration and its many admirers in elite journalism circles and that he was a strikingly different type of Washington insider than his business partner Evans, a debonair Georgetowner at ease on the city's dinner circuit ... Mr. Novak was considered by many Washington colleagues to be far more generous than the scowling character he assumed on television debate programs such as CNN's 'Crossfire,' but he said the more combative aspect of his personality was heightened on television."
John Boehner, House Minority Leader: Novak “made remarkable contributions in the field of journalism and to the American political landscape ... it is hard to imagine Washington without him.”
Sam Feist, CNN's political director: "If you were a friend of Bob Novak's, you couldn't have a better friend."
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Read entire article at Salon
Conservative columnist Robert Novak died Tuesday of cancer at the age of 78. Known most recently for his involvement in the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame, Novak was a famed Washington insider and reporter for decades. Here's a look at how Washington and the media world are already reacting to his death.
Washington Post: "He was a committed conservative, but he was not easy to characterize. He supported tax cuts, small government, supply-side economics, military strength, free trade and liberal immigration, while opposing the Iraq war and often being highly critical of Israel -- or at least its policy with regard to Palestinians ... Much of what he wrote was not so much ideological as it was simply telling ... Mr. Novak spent much time in his final years fending off accusations of perfidy for revealing the name of CIA 'operative' Valerie Plame in a column on her husband's criticism of Bush administration policy on Iraq. It was never clear why a writer who opposed the war would be colluding with the administration on the matter (this was the gist of the accusations), and as the story played out, that wasn't the way it happened. Mr. Novak said that, looking back on it -- all the struggle, legal expenses, acrimony and pain caused to others -- he might have done well to leave that somewhat peripheral disclosure out of his column. Looking back on Mr. Novak's career as a reporter who relished reporting what he'd found out and couldn't even contemplate retirement from all the combat it provoked, we kind of doubt he would have."
Eleanor Clift, Newsweek: "On television, we were rarely on the same side. Bob Novak reveled in his hardline views. I was one of those bleeding-heart liberals whose views he routinely ridiculed. It was the mid-'80s, and we would sometimes drive out together on Friday afternoons to the NBC studio to tape The McLaughlin Group. The top would be down on his LeBaron convertible, and he always wore his Chicago Cubs cap. I considered him a friend, and he was instrumental in getting me on the show, which at the time was all male."
Chicago Sun-Times: "We at the Sun-Times will remember Bob as a generous friend and colleague, a tireless workhorse, an innovator in journalism and an example of how to practice our profession. His most enduring legacy, though, may well be his work to pass down generation to generation his love of this country, its traditions and its values that guided his life and work."
Al Hunt, Bloomberg News executive editor: "He was wrong on everything, but we had such incredible fun ... Bob couldn't have been a lawyer or a professor — you can't imagine Bob as anything else besides the kind of hell-raising journalist that he was. Bob didn't hide his views as a dyed-in-the-wool conservative. But he was incredibly hard on hypocrisy from the right. He never cared much that he wasn't invited to White House dinners, even by Republicans — it was almost a point of pride."
Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff: Novak was "a good friend and a fine reporter. We spent many hours talking about the ins and out of Washington and Chicago politics together, and I will miss his friendship greatly."
Adam Bernstein, Washington Post: "He earned [the nickname 'Prince of Darkness'] in the early 1960s for what he called his swarthy looks, poor skills as a raconteur and 'grim-visaged demeanor.' He said that his unsmiling pessimism was a stark contrast with the upbeat spirit of the Kennedy administration and its many admirers in elite journalism circles and that he was a strikingly different type of Washington insider than his business partner Evans, a debonair Georgetowner at ease on the city's dinner circuit ... Mr. Novak was considered by many Washington colleagues to be far more generous than the scowling character he assumed on television debate programs such as CNN's 'Crossfire,' but he said the more combative aspect of his personality was heightened on television."
John Boehner, House Minority Leader: Novak “made remarkable contributions in the field of journalism and to the American political landscape ... it is hard to imagine Washington without him.”
Sam Feist, CNN's political director: "If you were a friend of Bob Novak's, you couldn't have a better friend."
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