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It is with mixed feelings that I must report the death of one of movement conservatism's most powerful, articulate and consequential voices. Columnist and commentator Robert Novak has died at 78 in Washington, DC of brain cancer. NPR reports his obituary here.
I hope I have learned not to let my hatred for someone's politics so drive me over the line of reason as to wish them dead (thank you,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
madfilkentist), and my heart goes out to his widow Geraldine, his children Zelda and Alex, his longtime friend and fellow pundit Fred Barnes and the rest of his friends, family, fans and professional associates. But I am also keenly aware of all the evil behavior and statements for which Bob Novak was justly known—on Capitol Hill and in the title of his own autobiography—as "The Prince of Darkness." Wikipedia's page on Novak lists the catalogue of his infamy, capped by his outing of former CIA operative Valerie Plame at the instigation of Bush Régime officials seeking retribution against her husband for his public criticism of their foreign policy, violating Federal law and placing both husband and wife's lives at risk.
The depredations of the previous administration and of Republican officeholders at all levels of government prior to it, from the Nixon years on, were in no small part a direct result of Novak's writing and his conscious acting as a promoter of the modern conservative ideology. I am once again reminded of the old joke I heard from a New Orleans cabaret performer in character as Bette Davis, saying of her old rival Joan Crawford: "I was always taught that you should say something good about the dead. She's dead—good!" As the right loses one more prominent soldier, I for one lift a frosty schadenfreude cocktail in toast to his memory, and to the Hell both I and the converted-to-Catholicism Mr. Novak were taught exists, in hope that it actually does. If so, we may be assured of at least a chance that he will be roasting uncomfortably alongside Dick Nixon and Bill Buckley in some suitably deep circle therein for all eternity.
I hope I have learned not to let my hatred for someone's politics so drive me over the line of reason as to wish them dead (thank you,
madfilkentist), and my heart goes out to his widow Geraldine, his children Zelda and Alex, his longtime friend and fellow pundit Fred Barnes and the rest of his friends, family, fans and professional associates. But I am also keenly aware of all the evil behavior and statements for which Bob Novak was justly known—on Capitol Hill and in the title of his own autobiography—as "The Prince of Darkness." Wikipedia's page on Novak lists the catalogue of his infamy, capped by his outing of former CIA operative Valerie Plame at the instigation of Bush Régime officials seeking retribution against her husband for his public criticism of their foreign policy, violating Federal law and placing both husband and wife's lives at risk.The depredations of the previous administration and of Republican officeholders at all levels of government prior to it, from the Nixon years on, were in no small part a direct result of Novak's writing and his conscious acting as a promoter of the modern conservative ideology. I am once again reminded of the old joke I heard from a New Orleans cabaret performer in character as Bette Davis, saying of her old rival Joan Crawford: "I was always taught that you should say something good about the dead. She's dead—good!" As the right loses one more prominent soldier, I for one lift a frosty schadenfreude cocktail in toast to his memory, and to the Hell both I and the converted-to-Catholicism Mr. Novak were taught exists, in hope that it actually does. If so, we may be assured of at least a chance that he will be roasting uncomfortably alongside Dick Nixon and Bill Buckley in some suitably deep circle therein for all eternity.
