Robert Novak, legendary Washington columnist, is dead at 78. I worked for him for a mere two weeks. I was filling time between jobs, which, in this industry, can be short.
Commemorating him is tricky business — he famously said that he had no friends, merely sources and targets. His book, “The Prince of Darkness,” chronicled the foibles of the Washington establishment gained through a half century of classic shoe-leather journalism.
It also rankled some, as did much of Novak’s other work. Such are the ways of Washington, especially in reporting. And when that rankling happens among your own side, you then realize that internecine conflict is cold, nasty, brutish and most certainly not short.
David Frum, former White House speechwriter and conservative author, has some history with Novak. Frum had previously imputed in the pages of National Review (of all places) that Novak’s response to the attacks of September 11 was unpatriotic, or at the very least, within throwing distance of other unpatriotic sentiments. The title of the piece was, “Unpatriotic Conservatives.” The subtitle: “A war against America.”
Novak rarely shied away from a fight, to be sure, but it was a particularly severe statement. National Review was a friendly magazine and many of the writers admired Novak as a solid journalist. The scuffle raised eyebrows and wouldn’t stop — even when Frum commemorated Novak yesterday.
After referencing how he had been “attacked” by Novak, Frum said: “Robert Novak for all his faults was never an unpatriotic American. I didn’t call him that in the article, but the title included him by understandable and inescapable implication. That was unjust, and the subtitle of the piece — ‘A war against America,’ which I didn’t see until it was too late to alter — was even more unfair to Novak.”
What followed was a broadside: “I have regretted for some time not being more precise in my criticism of him, and it’s no excuse for my fault that he never regretted being imprecise or worse in his criticisms of others.”
Is there no end?
Obituaries that air the last breath of a personal grievance are cheap. It’s sad to see that even in the final sentence, Frum couldn’t resist.
When William F. Buckley, Jr. passed away early last year, most conservative writers had their column topic for that week. With sadness, they took to the task of recalling a man who was too large for life.
While wistful, some tributes included a light slam. Michael Kinsley dedicated more space to an unflattering and crude anecdote (Bill relieving himself on a garage door) than to expressing appreciation for how Bill gave him great opportunities (Kinsley’s first television appearance was on Bill’s show, Firing Line). Maybe it was a laugh line, but it smacked of a throwaway. Peter Brimelow, a British journalist, would say that Buckley was motivated only by ego and vanity.
Buckley himself wrote obituaries. In college, I copied into my notebook his tribute to his old friend and noted BBC personality, Alistair Cooke, which appeared in the National Review. Upon hearing the news that his friend was dying of cancer, he did what writers do. But he then did something remarkably human in its affection: He sent the obit to his friend.
Cooke did what any man keen on living would do, which was to instruct his secretary to return it, unread. Bill understood, though he regretted Cooke would not know his affection prior to departure. (It’s doubtful Cooke needed to read anything to understand it.)
When Bill addressed ideological nemeses John Kenneth Galbraith and William Sloane Coffin, he did so with similar humanity. The former he was able to befriend despite ideological differences. The latter he engaged with respect.
Buckley set many examples — but his willingness to say goodbye to conflict is one that’s sorely missed today. Novak certainly deserves as much.
J.P. Freire is associate editorial page editor of The Washington Examiner and was named Conservative Journalist of the Year for 2009 by the Conservative Political Action Conference.
