Obit:: Political Columnist Robert Novak (Aug 2009)

Subject: RE: Obit:: Political Columnist Robert Novak (Aug 2
From: Peter T.
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 10:04 AM

He was an interesting monster. He predicted that the American movement into Afghanistan would add to the Muslim resentment against America, and was always digging around. For those with short memories (i.e. people who don't live in the Middle East), here's one of my favourite Novak columns:

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/linkscopy/IraqBioweps.html

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: Obit:: Political Columnist Robert Novak (Aug 2009)
From: John Hardly
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 08:08 AM

and there are some people on this site who think they own the truth...or even know it.

Subject: RE: Obit:: Political Columnist Robert Novak (Aug 2009)
From: goatfell
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 06:24 AM

there are some people on this site who don't like the truth

Subject: RE: Obit:: Political Columnist Robert Novak (Aug 2009)
From: John Hardly
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 06:18 PM

Ron Davies, I suddenly like you very much. Okay, not so suddenly.

Subject: RE: Obit:: Political Columnist Robert Novak (Aug 2009)
From: Ref
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 02:06 PM

Try looking at the whole and see what a mess the American system is. The real American left has no voices being consistently heard in the mass media and palid moderate-libs (like Shields) are described as lefties. Meanwhile, the palid mod-libs in the media can't get it through their heads how damnably important all this "politics" stuff is to street-level Americans and they run around chatting amiably with, and defending the off-screen charm of, people like Novak, Coulter, etal who are playing for keeps in every context. We shouldn't be compromising with right-wingers any more than a doctor should compromise with cancer.

Don't tell me Novak was being a journalist (perhaps he was when younger) when he outed Plame. He was being a partisan actor, as he was for most of the last thirty years.

Subject: RE: Obit:: Political Columnist Robert Novak (Aug 2
From: Ron Davies
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 11:06 PM

"politics as with a cancer"

Subject: RE: Obit:: Political Columnist Robert Novak (Aug 2009)
From: Deckman
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 10:58 PM

I repeat ... GOOD RIDDANCE!

Subject: RE: Obit:: Political Columnist Robert Novak (Aug 2
From: Ron Davies
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 10:47 PM

" Washington insider "liberals" like Shields".   Do you prefer "moderate"?   Or is that also a curse word?

Shields is just somebody capable of having friends who didn't march in lockstep with him on everything--(or much at all).

Somebody who isn't consumed with politics as with a cancer.   You might try it sometime.

Subject: RE: Obit:: Political Columnist Robert Novak (Aug 2009)
From: DougR
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 09:33 PM

Broke his leg? That's a new one to me.

Who shamed him, Donuel?

DougR

Subject: RE: Obit:: Political Columnist Robert Novak (Aug 2009)
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 05:55 PM

He was a more dignified version of the shameless shills they have today on FOX.

He was shamed at the role he played for Cheney's outing of CIA officers. He was ordered to testify, broke his leg and went downhill soon after.

Subject: RE: Obit:: Political Columnist Robert Novak (Aug 2009)
From: Ref
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 05:41 PM

...or, perhaps, a corporate Republican owned mass media kept him on as a loyal servant. "Exposed" agenda my foot. Most of what happens on the left side of this country's divide takes place in the light of day. It's your Bush/Cheney types who want everything secret.

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: GUEST,The Folk Entertainer
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 09:35 AM

Of course liberals hated him. What else what you expect from those whose agenda was exposed for what it was? How does someone last as long as Novak did if a lot of ordinary people didn't respect him?

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: Ref
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 07:51 PM

Mark Shields is a liberal to those who believe clones like Rush and Beck. Novak was a man who made his living as a former of public opinion. Washington insider "liberals" like Shields and his fellow consumers of cocktail franks may have found him privately charming. His public body of work, I still maintain, was shameful.

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: GUEST,The Folk entertainer
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 05:58 PM

Robert Novak was as good as it gets in journalism.

If you didn't like him, his truth must have hit a nerve.

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: DougR
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 05:42 PM

Amos: "Do you think Ms. Plame would account Mr. Novak's actions as gentmemanly?"

He was just doing his job as a reporter, Amos. I'm not surprised you see it as you do, though, actual reporting by a reporter is so rare these days.

Jed: I join you as a mourner.

Mark Shields is about as liberal as they come and the article pdq just posted shows, I believe, is a very fair man.

Somebody said, and I can't remember who, "If you can't say something good about somebody, don't say anything at all."

DougR

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: John Hardly
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 04:13 PM

Ask her what she thinks of Richard Armitage, then ask me.

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: Amos
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 03:26 PM

John:

Do you think Ms. Plame would account Mr Novak's actions as gentlemanly?

A

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: John Hardly
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 03:24 PM

It is a lesson not lost on anyone who holds to a more conservative political ideology that the left has equal vitreol no matter how gentlemanly, no matter how reasoned one may conduct themselves.

Those glued to their televisions each night to be treated to the snarkfest that is The Daily Show, Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher, and The Colbert Report will laugh with glee at the death of Novak, all the while patting themselves on their self righteous backs at their own civility.

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: Amos
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 12:39 PM

I would be curious to know what could have prompted him--a man clearly widely exposed to the peculiarities of human life--to convert to Catholicism, of all things.


A

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: pdq
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 12:14 PM

The Robert Novak I Know ~ Mark Shields

When people learn that for nearly 40 years — including more than 17 spent disagreeing, often heatedly, with him on CNN's weekly "Capital Gang" — that columnist Robert Novak has been my good friend, they often shake their heads in disbelief. In 30 years of covering American politics, the most frequently asked question I get about any journalistic colleague has remained the same: What is Bob Novak really like? This is a question people do not generally ask me about Nevada governor Jim Gibbons or the secretary of the army.

In this week, when we learned that he had been diagnosed with a brain tumor so serious that he is ending, after 45 years, his widely read and influential syndicated column, let me try and answer that question.

In Washington, D.C., a city notorious for front-runners where too many of us in and out of the press corps, pursue the company of the currently popular and prominent, Novak is a shining exception. He is loyal and devoted to old friends who long ago lost their position, their power and their professional usefulness. You can count on it: If you are Bob Novak's friend, you are Bob Novak's friend.

He hates to lose. Whether it's a bet on politics or sports or just an argument. Nobody works harder. Novak has always been a reporter first. Although he had access to national leaders, he did not — unlike so many of his competitors — pretend that a long lunch with a cabinet secretary was a substitute for reporting.

An anecdote: In recent years, the American conservative farm system has produced a bumper crop of bottle-blond right-wing women whom you cannot avoid on cable TV. One of these vixens, notorious for her blatant flattering and flirting with older, powerful men who might help her, batted her baby-blues and turned her charms on Novak one day. I overheard her pitch that went like this, "Bob, you are truly my idol. I want to be just like you. What one piece of advice can you give me to some day achieve what you have achieved?" Unmoved, Novak told the young Samantha Glick what she did not want to hear: "I would recommend doing what I did, starting as an AP reporter covering the Nebraska state legislature."

As he wrote in his riveting and refreshingly candid autobiography, "The Prince of Darkness," he learned well on that Nebraska tour that it "paid to be friends with low-level staffers." He has done the same in Washington. When he first interviewed me in the late '60s, I was a widely unknown campaign manager and, by nobody's definition, a well-placed source.

Bob has never pretended to be objective. I often kid him that his cure for declining Sunday school attendance or a national epidemic of halitosis has always been the same — Cut the capital gains tax! That tax-cutter's zeal may explain Novak taking too seriously an altogether unlikely presidential candidate like multimillionaire Steve Forbes.

Most people generally seek to put on a public face more appealing than the less attractive reality of their private personality. Bob Novak is the total opposite. His public "game face" is a scowl. He looks about as happy as an orange-suited prisoner on an Alabama chain gang sent to pick up roadside litter on a 100-degree August day. While Novak can be prickly, he is far more likeable — with a truly wonderful smile — in private than he is in public. We have argued about the misimpression he creates with his over-the-top declarations endorsing economic Darwinism. Bob Novak, it will pain his critics to learn, is an exceptionally generous human being whose acts of charity are literally countless.

His conversion to Catholicism has been a great source of strength, comfort and confidence. All I can say is that I count myself fortunate to call this talented, loyal man, Bob Novak, my friend.

[To find out more about Mark Shields and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.]

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: kendall
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 11:44 AM

Former president, Goatfell. Our present president was against the war in Iraq.

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 11:39 AM

Padre, I knew what you meant. My point was simply that it behooves us all to remain aware of the fragility of life and respect each person's struggle to do the best he can at any given time, knowing that time for each of us is inexorably short.

(How is that for pomposity? Sorry.)

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: goatfell
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 11:33 AM

well at lest he oppsed Iraq, unlike your president, and if people stood up for that like mr Novak, the would be quite a number of living sodiers today unlike the mass murder Bush was

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: kendall
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 07:17 AM

What he did could have gotten her killed, and if she were kidnapped she could have revealed the names of countless spies. And all because Bush needed to get even for her husband telling the truth about his WMDs story.
Adios MF

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: catspaw49
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 12:56 AM

While I didn't often agree with him, Novak usually made a well reasoned and passionate case for his beliefs and his stand on the issues, a trait found less and less often among the talking heads from either side or the middle. Sadly, he'll likely be remembered for the Plame/CIA affair but there was much more to him that needs to be thought of as well.

Don't get me wrong but I can't hoold the vitriol for Novak that I do for say Bobby Frank Cherry or Byron Delay Beckwith. He was head and shoulders above many other conservative journalists as well. He was a talking head but not a talking dickhead, which both the left and right can claim in abundance.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: Padre
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 12:28 AM

Ebbie,

John Donne's 'No Man is an Island (Meditation XVII) says it better than I can:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee

Padre

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: Ebbie
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 11:44 PM

Padre, "mourning the death of a fellow human being"? Three or four - or maybe even more - people die every day. :)

There was a time when I liked to read Novak. But that was 30 or 40 years ago.

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: Padre
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 10:47 PM

And I will join Jed in mourning the death of a fellow human being.

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 10:46 PM

Brain cancer. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: Ron Davies
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 10:43 PM

Very few people are always wrong. CNN:   Novak opposed the Iraq invasion.

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: Genie
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 10:24 PM

Well, I won't miss his input into our political discourse and government, but if could have my wishes granted, I'd wish for people like Novak to have some sort of conversion, not cancer.

My condolences to his family.

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: JedMarum
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 10:06 PM

one mourner here.

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: Ref
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 07:44 PM

...and yes, this does belong below the fold!

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: Ref
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 07:44 PM

I'd go to his funeral, but only to make sure that the wooden stake was properly hammered home. He was a stain on American journalism.

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 07:20 PM

To quote Mark Twain, "I didn't attend his funeral, but I approved of it."

Do you think he ever did any folking?

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: Peace
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 07:19 PM

I wonder what Valerie Plame (Wilson) will say.

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: Deckman
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 07:10 PM

Good riddance!

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: curmudgeon
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 07:09 PM

Let's get this below the line lest someone feels moved to speak ill of the dead = Tom

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: maire-aine
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 07:07 PM

Good luck to him when he goes to face God.

m

Subject: RE: Obit: Robert Novak
From: Amos
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 06:59 PM

Well, speak up. Don't be embarrassed.



A

Subject: Obit: Robert Novak
From: kendall
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 06:50 PM

Any mourners here?