Robert Novak 1931 – 2009
Robert Novak has had a huge influence on my career. During a college conservative journalists’ confab, he urged us to seek metro newspaper jobs, pay our dues, and try to stay out of Washington for as long as possible. I took the advice to heart and left D.C. after a year as an intern at NBC to take my first newspaper job at the L.A. Daily News and then the Seattle Times. “Pundits” and “strategists” come and go, but Novak’s longevity is a tribute to — and result of — his newspaperman sensibilities and investigative chops.
I discovered Bob Novak when I was in college. My political science teacher assigned us Rowland Evans and Robert Novak’s classic tomes: “Lyndon B. Johnson: The Exercise of Power” (1966) and “Nixon in the White House: The Frustration of Power” (1971). It was like giving the Bible on baseball to a kid who’d watched the game all her life without ever really knowing what all those signals mean. This is how power works. This is how Washington operates. This is how you get someone to do something he doesn’t want to do. This is what happens when people get in the room with the president.
I can’t think of a more honorable and decent person than
Bob Novak.
Uncle Bill said,
August 19, 2009 @ 11:48 am
Bob Novak was a shining light of conservatism among all of the liberal muck. I always tried to never miss his columns and radio, or TV talks. He will be greatly missed.