Eric Alterman is one of the most snide and vicious twits the left has out there, so I doubt that Novack had any interest in appearing with an anus from The Nation in the first place. It was probably a set-up and Novack declined to be abused by such jerks. Anyone who can cite fanatical leftist I.F. Stone (KGB stooge, perhaps spy) as his "journalist mentor" as Alterman does has to have some loose screws anyway....
"If you live long enough, the venerability factor creeps in; you get accused of things you never did and praised for virtues you never had." - I.F. Stone
I liked Stone's defense of ancient Athenian democracy: http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/essays/ifstoneonsocrates.html
Some might say the same of Murrymom.