Free Republic

Bipartisan send-off for insider columnist It's a safe bet that Robert D. Novak would have loved the service for him on a steamy Friday morning at St. Patrick's Church in the heart of the city he loved. ...political consultant Jeff Bell - the late Mr. Novak's godfather and friend - and National Review Editor Kate O'Beirne delivered readings of the Mass... After the Mass came the kind of spontaneous political gabfest that Mr. Novak also would have loved... "Novak cost me an ambassadorship after Nixon had resigned and Ford took over," recalled Pat Buchanan, conservative political commentator and former top...

Family, Journalists Pay Tribute To Columnist Novak By ANN SANNER, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON – Political columnist Robert Novak was remembered Friday as a man committed to faith, family and craft. Friends, family, fellow journalists and political strategists squeezed into St. Patrick Catholic Church in Washington to pay tribute to the proud owner of the "Prince of Darkness" moniker. Attendees at his funeral Mass included Karl Rove, a top strategist for former President George W. Bush and a key figure in the 2003 Valerie Plame-CIA leak case that became part of Novak's legacy. Monsignor Salvatore Criscuolo told Novak's wife, children...

It was only two days after 9/11 when "respected columnist" Robert Novak began by promoting Trutherism, writing in his column, titled, "This is No Pearl Harbor", "Security experts and airline officials agree privately that the simultaneous hijacking of four jetliners was an "inside job," probably indicating complicity beyond malfeasance. This makes all the more ominous Tuesday's national consequences." Novak of course was wrong, but like most Truther propaganda, its larger purpose was to serve as an excuse for the actual Islamic terrorists. The column went on to suggest that Bin Laden wasn't even responsible for the attacks, "Unlike Pearl Harbor,...

Here are the news stories, editorials, and videos that conservatives dugg yesterday, Tuesday, August 18, 2009. Please take a moment to digg these articles at Digg.com, then get back over here!

Editor's Note: This special feature on Robert Novak first appeared in the March 2009 issue of Townhall Magazine.Robert David Sanders Novak has been called many names. His close friends call him “Bob.” Most people call him “Novak.” His wife calls him “Robert.” Keith Olbermann has called him “The Worst Person in the World.” His more petulant critics have viler names for him. Many critics and admirers have called him “The Prince of Darkness.” I have had the honor of calling him “Boss.” Since I went to work for him at the end of 2001, Novak has been a mentor and...

As most everyone has heard, Bob Novak, an original Evil Conservative, passed away today from brain cancer. Greg Gutfeld, of Fox's Redeye, wrote an excellent obituary memorializing a man whose common-sense conservatism and individuality made him a fixture in the political arena.

A few years out of college I enrolled in the best journalism school in America. It featured no textbooks, no grades, no degrees, and this particular institution's alumni total fewer than a dozen fortunate individuals.The campus was a dingy, claustrophobic room, whose inner walls were covered with old political bumper stickers, perched on the top floor of a high rise a half block from the White House. This was the nerve center for Rowly Evans and Bob Novak, who died of brain cancer complications early Tuesday morning. Their must-read, reportorial syndicated column began just before the Kennedy presidency's violent end....

Reporter, patriot, skeptic of the powerful. One irony of Robert Novak's long and admirable career as a journalist is that he wasn't a curmudgeon, though he played one on TV. In person, he was warm, loyal to friends and especially generous to young writers, even if he was fearless and unsparing toward the public officials he devoted his life to covering—or, to put it more accurately, uncovering. Novak, who died yesterday at age 78, was among America's greatest political reporters.

The late Robert Novak Washington D.C., Aug 18, 2009 / 04:57 pm (CNA).- The death of Robert Novak has led many to remember the career of the expert political journalist. Some noted his conversion to Catholicism later in life, with one former colleague calling it his “most important” change of heart.Novak died of a malignant tumor at his Washington, D.C. home on Tuesday. One half of the Evans-Novak “Inside Report,” begun in 1963 with journalist Robert Evans, Novak was known for his ability to explain the feuds and factions of American politics with the help of his many inside...

David Zurawik, the Baltimore Sun’s TV critic, didn’t even wait a full 24 hours after Robert Novak’s death to launch a stinging criticism of the former Crossfire host on the newspaper’s website on Tuesday. Zurawik lamented the apparently contaminated state of political discourse on cable TV and placed much of the blame on Novak in the blog entry titled, “Robert Novak on cable TV: A Polarizing Presence.” The critic began by announcing his intention to focus on the conservative’s television legacy, instead of his “place...on the political and journalistic map.” He then when right into his attack on Novak, which...

NEW YORK A lengthy Q and A with the ailing columnist Robert Novak-- who died today at age 78-- appeared last November in the Washingtonian. At the end, Barbara Matusow got around to asking about the CIA leak case and outed spy Valerie Plame Wilson. Novak replied: "From a personal point of view, I said in the book I probably should have ignored what I’d been told about Mrs. Wilson. "Now I’m much less ambivalent. I’d go full speed ahead because of the hateful and beastly way in which my left-wing critics in the press and Congress tried to make...

Columnist Robert Novak has died after a battle with brain cancer, FOX News confirms. He was 78. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Novak died early Tuesday morning at his home in Washington. Novak had been a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times for decades

The family of legendary conservative journalist Robert Novak has announced that he passed away earlier today at his home after a long battle with brain cancer. Novak was 78. I have long admired Robert Novak. He was conservative, but he was not afraid to report the truth about Democrats and Republicans alike. I did not always agree with him, but I greatly respect him. Novak wrote the story of his life as a reporter in Washington in the outstanding book, Prince of Darkness. I wrote a review of that book after reading it and posted it here back in November...

Bob Novak hired me away from HUMAN EVENTS in late 2001. “Poaching,” HE Editor-in-Chief Tom Winter called it. I was not the first early-20s reporter Novak would pluck from HE’s newsroom. Nor would I be the last.

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak, one of the nation’s most influential journalists, who relished his “Prince of Darkness” public persona, died at home here early Tuesday morning after a battle with brain cancer. “He was someone who loved being a journalist, love journalism and loved his country and loved his family, Novak’s wife, Geraldine, told the Sun-Times on Tuesday. Novak’s remarkable and long-running career made him a powerful presence in newspaper columns, newsletters, books and on television. On May 15, 1963, Novak teamed up with the late Rowland Evans Jr. to create the “Inside Report” political column, which became the...

...Bob was Illinois and early in life was most at home in sports bars and, throughout his years in Washington, at unfashionable University of Maryland basketball games.... By day, however, Novak worked political sources like no other reporter. That is why so many people would be astonished when his political sources would become known. It was stunning when Novak revealed that the Democratic senator who dismissed the McGovern for President campaign as being about little more than “amnesty, abortion and acid” was none other than Thomas Eagleton, who McGovern would later (albeit briefly) choose as his vice presidential nominee. Who...

The Western world has never taken Islam with the full seriousness it has earned. Down through history, once Islamic armies have conquered a land, with very few exceptions, that land has remained Muslim. A Christian will wish in vain that the great circle of Christian lands around the Mediterranean (and on up into Syria, Iraq, Iran, and northwards into Georgia) had not fallen irretrievably into Muslim hands, most of them before 732 A.D. For Christians who think that the future of the world favors movement in their direction, a study of the latent dynamism of Islam is not a little...

Robert Novak recently sat down with Barbara Mutasow of the Washingtonian magazine for a deeply personal interview. This article was first published in the November 2008 issue of The Washingtonian magazine. Whether you like him or hate him, Robert Novak's combination of insider dope, political pronouncements, and glowering TV presence have made him a Washington institution. So the announcement in July that he was suspending his newspaper column because of a brain tumor came as a jolt. What other journalist has been tearing up the town with so much relish for the past 51 years? I spent some time with...

Whether you like him or hate him, Robert Novak’s combination of insider dope, political pronouncements, and glowering TV presence have made him a Washington institution. So the announcement in July that he was suspending his newspaper column because of a brain tumor came as a jolt. What other journalist has been tearing up the town with so much relish for the past 51 years? I spent some time with Novak five years ago for The Washingtonian, chronicling his journey from secular Jew to devout Catholic. Somewhat to my surprise, the scowling, sardonic columnist turned out to be a peach of...

In serious conversations among Republicans since their election debacle Tuesday, what name is mentioned most often as the Moses, or Reagan, who could lead them out of the wilderness before 40 years? To the consternation of many Republicans, it is none other than Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House. Gingrich is far from a unanimous or even a consensus choice to run for president in 2012, but there is a strong feeling in Republican ranks that he is the only leader of their party who has shown the skill and energy to attempt a comeback quickly. Even one...

No mandate for Obama, no lopsided Congress NO REALIGNMENT | No mandate for Obama, no lopsided Congress WASHINGTON -- The national election Tuesday was not only historic for the election of the first African-American president in the nation's history but also for how little the avalanche of Democratic votes changed the political alignment in Congress.

Gen. Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama for president, in effect ending Powell’s brief interlude as a Republican, was the least surprising and most predictable event of an unusually unpredictable election cycle. The interaction between Powell and the Republican Party was never a marriage made in heaven. Accordingly, it is hard to remember that as recently as 1992, influential Washington Republican power-brokers were seriously promoting Powell as their party’s nominee for president. Regarding Powell as “our Eisenhower,” they considered him the solution to a bleak landscape of possible candidates in that year’s election. Fortunately for all concerned, Powell declined their...

A year ago, Robert Novak mentioned secret vault of information of Obama's sex scandal hidden in the hands of Hillary Clinton. According to Robert Novak, Agents of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal opponent for the party's presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, but has decided not to use it. The nature of the alleged scandal was not disclosed. The secret vault was never to be used, and Hillary Clinton retreated from the race for President candidate of Democrat Party. The issue has not gain much attention afterward by...

Can John McCain possibly win this thing? Can he actually win in November? The outlook is bleak: The polls are ugly, the Electoral College map is grim, the economy is getting worse, and McCain's choice of Sarah Palin may have energized the Republican base, but it has appalled and frightened many outside that base. Still, McCain's campaign has come back from the dead more than once: He survived his early support for immigration reform; he not only survived but has prospered from his support for the Iraq war surge, and he rebuilt a primary campaign that was in a state...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The main reason I am writing this column is that many people have asked me how I first realized I was suffering from a brain tumor and what I have done about it. But I also want to relate the reaction to my disease, mostly compassionate, that belies Washington's reputation. . . . . . When Zelda said to call 911, I again resisted, but she again prevailed. I promptly suffered another seizure in the ambulance, the second of three seizures that day. I gained admittance to the high-quality Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, which has...

.........."There are mad bloggers who profess to take delight in my distress, but there's no need to pay them attention in the face of such an outpouring of good will for me. I had thought 51 years of rough-and-tumble journalism in Washington made me more enemies than friends, but my recent experience suggests the opposite may be the case. But Joe and Valerie Wilson, attempting to breathe life into the Valerie Plame "scandal," issued this statement: "We have long argued that responsible adults should take Novak's typewriter away. The time has arrived for them to also take away the keys...

The main reason I am writing this column is that many people have asked me how I first realized I was suffering from a brain tumor and what I have done about it. But I also want to relate the reaction to my disease, mostly compassionate, that belies Washington's reputation. The first sign that I was in trouble came on Wednesday, July 23, when my 2004 black Corvette struck a pedestrian on 18th Street in downtown Washington while I was on my way to my office. I did not realize I had hit anyone until a shirt-sleeved young man on...

Partisan Democrats and many members of the media consider John McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate a terrible mistake. But McCain need not worry about their criticism. His unexpected selection satisfied the people he needed to please. Republican conservatives assembling in St. Paul for the party's national convention were "ecstatic" over the choice. Nor did the announcement Monday that Palin's 17-year-old unmarried daughter was pregnant -- but would raise the child and marry the father -- perceptibly diminish the enthusiasm for her in St. Paul by Republicans, who regarded the news as irrelevant to the...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Reports of strong support within John McCain's presidential campaign for Independent Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman as the Republican candidate for vice president are not a fairy tale. Influential McCain backers, plus McCain himself, would pick the pro-choice liberal from Connecticut if they thought they could get away with it. But they can't get away with it -- and this has been made clear to McCain by none other than Joe Lieberman himself.

Reports of strong support within John McCain's presidential campaign for Independent Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman as the Republican candidate for vice president are not a fairy tale. Influential McCain backers, plus McCain himself, would pick the pro-choice liberal from Connecticut if they thought they could get away with it. But they can't get away with it -- and this has been made clear to McCain by none other than Joe Lieberman himself. Lieberman surely doesn't know that much about Republican politics, but he has close Republican friends. One of them prevailed on Lieberman to tell McCain that a McCain-Lieberman ticket...

If you strip away the phony labels liberals affix to themselves about being tolerant, diversity loving, and all-inclusive, you see how malignantly antisocial, pathologically disturbed some of them really are. You see, the tolerant all-inclusive diversity love is reserved for other liberals, which kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it. So in the spirit of Daily Kos’s earlier KKK Torturing Michelle Obama Post, we have this new jewel of illiteracy. I am sure there’s a real diagnosis that applies to this condition. Sociopath maybe? If you would like to be added to The Patriot Room ping list, please FReepmail.

Appeals court upholds CIA leak lawsuit dismissal Tue Aug 12, 2008 12:01pm EDT By Andy Sullivan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday dismissed former CIA analyst Valerie Plame's lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney and several former Bush administration officials for disclosing her identity to the public. The Court of Appeals in Washington dealt another setback to the former spy, who has said her career was destroyed when officials blew her cover in 2003 to retaliate against her husband, Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson.

The op-ed page of The Washington Post is full of type, but not enough to fill the gaping hole where Robert “Bob” Novak's column used to appear. Novak's column nominally originated from The Chicago Sun-Times, but he was the first to say that much of his success was the result of appearing in The Washington Post. If you write about politics it helps to do it where the politicians will read you. In Washington the best place for that is The Post, with its dominant circulation among the three newspapers published in the nation's capital. Now that Novak, 77, has...

Back in 1998, he made a comment on CNN — what it was is not material here — that I considered beyond the pale. I decided I could henceforth do without his opinions and insights. He impressed me as a distinctly disagreeable man. And that was well before he outed covert CIA agent Valerie Plame. When the news broke a few days ago that Novak had a brain tumor and would retire, I was not made prostrate by grief. What I felt was that whisper of common mortality, that sense of there-but-for-the-grace-of-God one usually feels when tragedy strikes someone who...

Just as resilient Yankee slugger Lou Gehrig eventually played his last game, just as every perennial Broadway hit one day rings down the final curtain, so Robert Novak has written his last newspaper column. The dramatic and unexpected end to Novak's newspaper career was announced Monday after a "dire diagnosis" of brain cancer. Novak's hugely influential run -- after the passing of William F. Buckley, he became the longest-running syndicated political columnist in America -- began May 15, 1963, in a column written with Rowland Evans Jr. Evans' boss at the New York Herald-Tribune had been pressing Evans to write...

Robert Novak has announced his immediate retirement following the diagnosis of a brain tumor, a prognosis the Sun-Times' political columnist describes as "dire." "The details are being worked out with the doctors this week, but the tentative plan is for radiation and chemotherapy," Novak said. Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak says he has brain tumor The Evans-Novak column was first distributed by Publishers Newspaper Syndicate on May 15, 1963, with the New York Herald-Tribune, the flagship newspaper. When the Herald-Tribune folded in 1966, the Chicago Sun-Times became their home newspaper.

Robert Novak has announced his immediate retirement following the diagnosis of a brain tumor, a prognosis the Sun-Times' political columnist describes as "dire." "The details are being worked out with the doctors this week, but the tentative plan is for radiation and chemotherapy," Novak said.

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak said today he has been diagnosed with a brain tumor but says that, “God willing,” he plans to be back at work soon. Novak said he was diagnosed Sunday with a tumor and will soon begin treatment at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. RELATED STORIES More on Robert Novak Sun-Times publisher: Novak a 'source of great pride' He issued the following statement: “On Sunday, July 27, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I have been admitted to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, where doctors will soon begin appropriate treatment. “I will be...

Robert Novak was admitted yesterday to a Boston hospital where he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. In a written statement given to his publisher, Novak said: “On Sunday, July 27, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I have been admitted to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, where doctors will soon begin appropriate treatment. “I will be suspending my journalistic work for an indefinite but, God willing, not too lengthy period.”

Novak: In the contest for president, Barack Obama is a magnetic candidate supported by a disciplined, well-organized campaign. John McCain seems wooden, with a campaign that appears to be in shambles. Yet Obama's lead in the polls over McCain is fragile because he so far has not won the support of a majority of American voters. An effective and massively publicized foreign trip failed to push Obama above the 50 percent mark. Democratic hopes and Republican fears that he would get a major bounce in the polls when he clinched the nomination and then on his campaign trip abroad have...

Rep. Roy Blunt, the House Republican whip, on July 8 introduced a resolution demanding that the Defense Department better enable U.S. military personnel overseas to vote in the November elections. That act was followed by silence. Democrats normally leap on an opportunity to find fault with the Bush Pentagon. But not a single Democrat joined Blunt as a co-sponsor, and an all-Republican proposal cannot pass in the Democratic-controlled House. Analysis by the federal Election Assistance Commission, rejecting inflated Defense Department voting claims, estimated overseas and absentee military voting for the 2006 midterm elections at a disgracefully low 5.5 percent. The...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Rep. Roy Blunt, the House Republican whip, on July 8 introduced a resolution demanding that the Defense Department better enable U.S. military personnel overseas to vote in the November elections. That act was followed by silence. Democrats normally leap on an opportunity to find fault with the Bush Pentagon. But not a single Democrat joined Blunt as a co-sponsor, and an all-Republican proposal cannot pass in the Democratic-controlled House. Analysis by the federal Election Assistance Commission, rejecting inflated Defense Department voting claims, estimated overseas and absentee military voting for the 2006 midterm elections at a disgracefully low...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- I asked one of the Republican Party's smartest, most candid heavy hitters this week whether John McCain really has a chance to defeat Barack Obama in this season of Republican discontent. "No, if the campaign is about McCain," he replied. "Yes, if it's about Obama." That underlines the importance of Obama's visit to Iraq, beginning weeks of scrutiny for the Democratic presidential candidate under a GOP spotlight. Four years ago nearly to the day, I asked the same question to the same Republican leader about George W. Bush and John Kerry, and he gave the same answer....

Syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak was cited by police after he hit a pedestrian with his black Corvette in downtown Washington, D.C., Wednesday morning.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2008/07/novak-tells-fox.html

ENPR Special: Sources say McCain Veep Pick to Come This Week 07/21/2008 Print This Forward Feedback Digg This! Subscribe Archives Sponsored By: Sources close to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign are suggesting he will reveal the name of his vice presidential selection this week while Sen. Barack Obama is getting the headlines on his foreign trip. The name of McCain's running mate has not been disclosed, but Mitt Romney has led the speculation recently. (Developing)

As financial storm signals appeared the past 18 months, some Bush officials urged drastic reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But, according to internal government sources, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson objected because it would look "too political." The Republican administration kept its hands off the government-backed mortgage companies that are closely connected to the Democratic establishment. Paulson is a Republican, but as head of the Goldman Sachs investment bank he had close ties with Democratic-dominated Fannie Mae.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Sen. Barack Obama has been meeting secretly with heavy industry CEOs in Washington to discuss issues that he would face as president. On the campaign trail, Obama has been highly critical of corporate executives and promised them nothing but tougher regulation and higher taxes. But the unannounced, small evening sessions with them since he clinched the Democratic nomination have been non-confrontational and cordial. Obama scheduled the meetings without any hopes of winning the captains of industry over from Sen. John McCain, but to show them they would be able to do business with him in the White...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Gov. Howard Dean, Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos, and former White House security adviser Richard Clarke are among the keynote speakers at the Yearly Kos convention in Autin, Texas now called the Netroots Nation event. The event will include training in how to recruit volunteers, looking and sounding good on TV and getting media exposure. A convention of conservative bloggers called RightOnline will feature nationally known blogger Michelle Malkin and columnist Robert Novak as headline speakers will be across town Friday & Saturday.

WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, back from the Fourth of July break, last week delivered a typical harangue on Republican obstructionism and Democratic virtue that included a promise: By week's end, he would show Republicans his proposal to deal with "this speculation thing" that he calls the root cause of $4-a-gallon gasoline. It would attempt "to end speculation on the oil markets." By week's end Friday, Republicans had seen nothing of Reid's plan because of internal Democratic disagreement on details. But plenty of other Democratic legislative proposals floated around Capitol Hill claiming to resolve the nation's gasoline woes...