Of Scowls & Scribes

Campus Report ^ | August 25, 2009 | Malcolm A. Kline

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Of Scowls & Scribes

by: Malcolm A. Kline, August 25, 2009

The acknowledgements of the passing of reporter Robert D. Novak last week were appropriately respectful, for the most part, albeit with an occasional backhand. For example, in his column in The Washington Post, Howard Kurtz, in the main, tried to give him his due.

Nevertheless, Kurtz offers a personal observation that, though rather superficial, I feel compelled to respond to. “I bumped into Novak occasionally at CNN where I host a weekly media program,” Kurtz remembered in the August 19, 2009 edition of The Post. “And although I’d like to report that he actually was a sweetheart—‘He’s a lot nicer than he ever comes across on the screen,’ longtime sparring partner Jack Germond told me last year—he often seemed to be scowling at someone.” (It’s too easy to surmise that he had just finished reading a Kurtz column.)

I bumped into Mr. Novak occasionally too—at least once a year for 20 years and often thrice annually when he would come to speak to interns at the National Journalism Center (NJC) where I was employed—and never saw him scowl. By way of contrast, I only saw Kurtz once, and he was scowling.

Here’s what led to the Style Section columnist’s grimace. Back in 1998, the Education and Research Institute (ERI), at the time the parent group of the NJC, hosted one of its Monday Club luncheons featuring Ann Coulter discussing her then-recent book, High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton.

No, believe it or not, it wasn’t Ann who made Kurtz dyspeptic but ERI chairman M. Stanton Evans—author, columnist and wit extraordinaire...