He was dubbed “The Prince of Darkness” by liberals who said they couldn’t abide Robert Novak’s determined attachment to supply side economics and the gospel of tax cuts, but the odds are good that what really made them uncomfortable – and more than a few politicians on the Right as well – was his irresistible drive to get to the facts.
Novak was a conservative to be sure, but before that and to his final days, he was always first and last a journalist of the old school. He came from a generation that grew up in the profession believing the highest calling of journalism was to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” Novak did both for five decades as one of Washington’s toughest and most respected political reporters.
For many of those years, he did it with partner Rowland Evans, who passed away in 2001, but whether alone or with “Rowlie,” Novak could always be found breaking news and exposing wrong-doing from the small towns of the American prairie all the way to the most powerful precincts inside the Beltway.
Novak was a man of the old school, but his commitment to getting to the facts no matter who got burned in the process made him a success in an impressive variety of media forms. He and Evans were best known for their daily newspaper column, which began during the Kennedy years and which was syndicated by the Chicago Sun-Times.
But Novak was also among the first and most widely recognized – and feared – of the television era’s political pundits, thanks to his prominent role on CNN’s often-tumultuous “Crossfire” interview program during the 1980s and 1990s. He also was executive producer of the usually more prosaic “Capitol Gang” on CNN, and he was a much-sought after speaker on the lecture circuit.
His autobiography – suitably titled “The Prince of Darkness: Fifty years of reporting in Washington” – also earned him a permanent place on the bookshelf of essential works by great American journalists. Note that the title, which he insisted upon, described his career as a reporter, not a columnist. It was an important distinction because Novak was a reporter who happened to do it via a column.
It was a distinction that some people in the Republican establishment just never figured out. Mal Kline writes of an encounter between Novak and an unnamed Republican bigshot who became frustrated with what he perceived as a lack of support from the columnist:
“When the Republicans took over Congress in 1994, Novak did not become a pushover for the new GOP majority. ‘Bob, your problem is that you’ve been on defense so long that you don’t know what to do when your team is on offense,’ a Republican congressman told Novak at the time. Novak smiled and said, ‘I’m not on your team.'”
Less well-known were Novak’s years of efforts in aiding aspiring young journalists, particularly in more recent years with the Phillips Foundation, which named its highest scholarship honor after him. Novak took seriously his role as a mentor, and it was one that will continue bearing fruit in the work of numerous exceptionally talented journalists for years into the future. Two of the latter, Timothy Carney and David Freddoso, are key members of this newspaper’s staff.
Novak wrote of his career in his autobiography that he “had a terrific time fulfilling all my youthful dreams and at the same time making life miserable for hypocritical, posturing politicians and, I hope, performing a service for my country.” He did indeed perform a priceless service for his fellow Americans, one that will not be forgotten as long as there are men and women as determined as he was to find and publish the truth for all to know.
