Bob Novak Dead

Farewell, Douchebag of Liberty

My favorite of the most loathsome things about Novak was his relish in that Prince of Darkness moniker -- well, now, really. Sporting eyebrows a cartoon villain would reject and writing graceless copy for 45 years makes one a prince.

definitely a waste of carbon

The Prince of Darkness nickname always made me think of the Frank Zappa "Evil Prince" character. "He eats the snouts and the trotters first" etc etc.

nb. 'scumbag' is ancient slang for condom

RIP, etc... I wish brain cancer on no-one and remember that it is unseemly to speak ill of the dead.

I do, however, remember when I first started following politics that I alwasy found him a man of extremely bad faith, without a moral compass, really. He always repulsed me like a venomous snake would.

in fairness dude did totally look like a condom

http://www.peteykins.com/sparklepony/Novakula.jpg

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/novak_douchebag_of_liberty.jpg

rot in hell

i guess you didn't really care for him

Thread title says it all for me. I have nothing to add to that.

Remember this?

Novak cited after hitting pedestrian.

Novak, 77, has earned a reputation around the capital as an aggressive driver, easily identified in his convertible sports car.

In 2001, he cursed at a pedestrian on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 13th streets Northwest for allegedly jaywalking.

“’Learn to read the signs, [bodily orifice]!’ Novak snapped before speeding away,” according to an item in The Washington Post’s Reliable Source column.

Novak explained to the paper: "He was crossing on the red light. I really hate jaywalkers. I despise them. Since I don't run the country, all I can do is yell at 'em. The other option is to run 'em over, but as a compassionate conservative, I would never do that."

Just to speak well of the dead, Bob Novak, along with Phillip Michael Thomas, was one of the two best-dressed men on television. RIP, my favorite conservative clotheshorse.

saw a reel of outtakes from crossfire like 15 years ago in which novak was just completely acting like a five-year-old -- "don't tell me to shut up. you shut up!" etc etc. kinda wondered how he even managed a career, being that clownish.

walked past him outside the acc basketball tournament when it was in dc a few years ago. he was wearing an over-large maryland terrapins jacket and looking lost. and judy woodruff was giving him shit because maryland had already lost and was out of the tournament.

he managed a career the way most of the washington press corps does - by being a v attentive errand boy to power

RIP.

i heard he was secretly nice to a kitten once.

then he ate it.

My Kim Dae-jung RIP thread died a quick death, but this thread has all kinds of life.

fuck this guy

If there was a decent lefty tabloid we could fabricate some shit about Novak recanting his whole politics on his deathbed.

Robert Novak was a cockfarmer.

somewhere, tucker carlson's bowtie is weeping.

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local-beat/NATL-Columnist-Robert-Novak-Dead-at-78--53572712.html

atm 76% are "laughing."

why does everyone hate this dude i never watched crossfire or read his shit

i don't even think his obits are gonna get one of those "i disagreed with him, but i always respected him" type deals. guy was a straight up uncivil asshole.

> why does everyone hate this dude i never watched crossfire or read his shit

Do you remember when he outed a CIA agent over a grudge with her husband?

Well, the story's more complicated.

burn, fucker.

Come OOOOOOOOOOOOOOON rule of three!

huh? like anyone remembered who Kim Dae-jung was?

Do you remember when he outed a CIA agent over a grudge with her husband?

This doesn't even chart, btw. I'd love to out all CIA agents.

i don't even think his obits are gonna get one of those "i disagreed with him, but i always respected him" type deals. guy was a straight up uncivil asshole.

apparently he was a real sweetheart in real life LOL

david broder: The self-mocking parody of himself that Bob created as the Prince, a grumpy right-winger, was sometimes taken more seriously by his audience than he intended. Bob was pugnacious, when challenged, but his instinct was to help his friends whenever they needed it.

new york times: Al Hunt, the Washington executive editor of Bloomberg News, said it was difficult to pigeonhole Mr. Novak.

“Bob was known for his very tough and hard-line views, but he was also a great reporter who liked a good story even more than his ideology,” said Mr. Hunt, who had worked for The Wall Street Journal for 39 years before joining Bloomberg in 2005. “He was the ‘reverse’ Washington. If you were riding high, Novak loved to kick you. And if you were down, he’d be there for you.”

After largely ignoring religion and dabbling in Unitarianism, Mr. Novak, in 1998, at age 67, converted to Roman Catholicism. In a ceremony, Msgr. Peter Vaghi proclaimed that the “prince of darkness” had been transformed into a “child of light.”

some idiot at the nro corner: With Bob Novak, what you saw was what you got. And it was impossible — if you had any appreciation of humanity — not to love him.

We on his staff would hear him slam down the phone after a raucous disagreement with someone. Then his door would swing open, and he would emerge with an empty coffee cup, looking for a lightning-fast refill of the thick black sludge that jelled in a rusty pot on a credenza all day. “And why don’t I need any sugar in my coffee?” he’d ask us.

“Because you’re already sweet,” we’d sing back.

“That’s right,” he’d nod, and retreat to his computer.

And sweet he indeed was.

wait, he was gay?

Do you remember when he outed a CIA agent over a grudge with her husband?

This doesn't even chart, btw

Morbz OTM

Msgr. Peter Vaghi proclaimed that the “prince of darkness” had been transformed into a “child of light.”

“Because you’re already sweet,” we’d sing back.

“Because you’re already sweet,” we’d sing back.

The image I now have of that office is, if possible, more sinister than ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v--BAKo4gjM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ISil7IHzxc

horrible person

(to be fair the other guys on the show - barring Zappa - are even more horrible)

Amnesty, Abortion and Acid

On April 25, 1972, George McGovern won the Massachusetts primary and Novak phoned Democratic politicians around the country, who agreed with his assessment that blue-collar workers voting for McGovern did not understand what he really stood for.[30] On April 27, 1972 Novak reported in a column that an unnamed Democratic senator had talked to him about McGovern.[31] "The people don’t know McGovern is for amnesty, abortion and legalization of pot," the Senator said.[31] "Once middle America – Catholic middle America, in particular – finds this out, he’s dead."[31] The label stuck and McGovern became known as the candidate of "amnesty, abortion and acid."[30][32]

Novak was accused of manufacturing the quote.[31] Novak has claimed that, to rebut this criticism, he took the senator to lunch after the campaign and had asked whether he could identify him as the source,[31] but the senator said he would not allow his identity to be revealed.[31] "Oh, he had to run for re-election", said Novak.[30] "The McGovernites would kill him if they knew he had said that," Novak added.[30]

On July 15, 2007, Novak disclosed on Meet the Press that the unnamed senator was Thomas Eagleton.[30] Political analyst Bob Shrum says that Eagleton would never have been selected as McGovern's running mate if it had been known at the time that Eagleton was the source of the quote.[30] Shrum said:
“ Boy, do I wish he would have let you publish his name. Then he never would have been picked as vice president. Because the two things, the two things that happened to George McGovern – two of the things that happened to him – were the label you put on him, number one, and number two, the Eagleton disaster. We had a messy convention, but he could have, I think in the end, carried eight or 10 states, remained politically viable. And Eagleton was one of the great train wrecks of all time.[30] ”

Eagleton died March 4, 2007, "relieving me of the need to conceal his identity," Novak wrote.[31] Some of Eagleton’s former aides were reportedly angry that Eagleton's name was attached to a quote that made him appear duplicitous.[31] Asked about the story, Novak acknowledged that disclosing Eagleton’s identity was "a judgment on my part."[31] If there’s any disagreement, Eagleton could settle it with him in heaven "or wherever we end up," Novak added.[31]

Msgr. Peter Vaghi proclaimed that the “prince of darkness” had been transformed into a “child of light.”

May the Monsignor soon join him in the light.

Do you remember when he outed a CIA agent over a grudge with her husband?

This doesn't even chart, btw

Morbz OTM

― go Nick go! Scrub that paint! Scrub it!! Yeah!! (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, August 19, 2009 11:42 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^idiotic

I think the point about the Plame outing is that Novak had no shred of moral integrity, even by DC standards.

apparently he was a real sweetheart in real life LOL

That's why he never got banned.

Michael Kinsley: "Beneath the asshole is a very decent guy, and beneath the very decent guy is an asshole."

Bill all I meant was the Plame thing was just one in a long litany of asshole moves

Whoops, sorry SMC. Bad call by me.

and all I meant was fuck the CIA.

did Don Hewitt not get his own thread? good.

whatever you think of the cia, outing its agents would be a complete and utter disaster. im no fan at all of it, but the point I was calling idiotic was the outing of the agents.

that logic reminds me of "no matter what you think of the Democrats' cowardice, not voting for them would be a complete and utter disaster..."

Oh, if we outed all the CIA agents, and its foreign intelligence assets around the world were swiftly imprisoned and/or executed in their native countries, you'd be linking to a Dennis Perrin column berating us all for enabling The Butcher Obama and for the blood on our hands and our insufficient outrage just about as fast as your little fingers could type, so fuck right the hell off.

that logic reminds me of "no matter what you think of the Democrats' cowardice, not voting for them would be a complete and utter disaster..."

― Indiana Morbs and the Curse of the Ivy League Chorister (Dr Morbius), Friday, August 21, 2009 9:25 AM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Sure, whatever you say.