Bob Novak wrote columns because it was the only vocation he ever had. Though he never would have called his work “public service” — he laughed at the idea — he undoubtedly served his country by exposing the machinations of power and showing how government actually operated.
Novak’s reporting unearthed how politicians often answer to well-connected lobbyists and serve their own interests rather than the needs of the country. This was an education for me and for his readers.
With his columns, Novak helped foster a salutary skepticism of government and reinforced the distrust of power that lies at the core of American liberty.
Much of Novak’s work involved tracking political horse races and getting inside dirt on candidates and elections. But Novak also loved digging into the bowels of the legislative and executive branches, and showing readers how the sausage is actually made.
In these days, when the president (like his predecessors) calls his critics “naysayers” and “cynics” and says the day for skepticism of government is past — and when even many conservatives believe that government is responsible for solving all of the nation’s problems — Novak’s lesson is indispensable.
Washington doesn’t exert a rightward influence on too many people. But Novak’s worm’s-eye view of power, politics and government turned him into a conservative. Center-left when he came to Washington, he steadily began to reject big government, eventually becoming a dedicated opponent of high taxes and government intervention in the economy.
Just as important, Novak’s support for the Vietnam War contrasted starkly to his opposition to the 2003 Iraq invasion. Novak had seen close up, again and again, that the best-laid plans of Republicans and Democrats often go awry.
Novak also showed America how grand promises give way to abuses of power. In the early 1970s, he reported that J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI “had degenerated into a giant public relations machine for Hoover’s aggrandizement.”
After the 1994 elections swept in Republican majorities in both chambers and gave conservatives hope of a real transformation, Novak reported that Republicans were retaining about half of the entrenched Democratic staff on the appropriations committees in both chambers.
After Sept. 11, 2001, and before the invasion of Iraq, Novak repeatedly reported that well-informed insiders had doubts about White House-peddled intelligence tying Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda.
In 2008, he uncovered the real reason that many Democrats opposed the Colombian Free Trade Agreement: The leftist South American unions that opposed Colombian President Alvaro Uribe had influence within the AFL-CIO, a lobbying giant wielding clout within the Democratic Party.
Novak taught us that good intentions only go so far, and that high-minded public justifications often mask self-serving backroom political calculations.
Challenging government is a public service. The naysayer is the prophet when those in power begin work on a Tower of Babel.
Novak earned the nickname the Prince of Darkness for being so pessimistic so young. Early in his career, his bleak outlook stemmed from a fear that freedom would fall to Communism — a worry he would shed by the time Ronald Reagan became president. Later in his career, Novak’s pessimism and reputation as a curmudgeon derived from something altogether different — he had lost faith in politics to make the world better.
For a sharp-eyed Washington journalist, it is easy to become bitter and irreparably cynical — as easy as the opposite temptation, rampant today in the capital, of putting one’s trust in princes.
Whittaker Chambers, the ex-communist and author of “Witness,” was a hero to Novak. Chambers wrote in a letter to his children: “A man is not primarily a witness against something. That is only incidental to the fact that he is a witness for something.”
After Novak’s trust in politicians was steadlily worn down by the gritty facts of politics, the old man found faith in God. I believe this is no coincidence.
Novak began wondering about God and the universe after he read “Witness.” In his 60s, a pointed comment from a young woman wearing a cross around her neck — “life is short, eternity is long” — prompted Novak to ponder things beyond the secular world. In 1998 he entered the Catholic Church.
The Prince of Darkness, in addition to being a gossip and dirt-disher inside the Beltway, also shined a light in the corners where power was exercised. In the end, this may have convinced him to seek salvation elsewhere.
