Tuesday, August 18, 2009
News RIP, Douchebag of Liberty
Posted by Asher Smith on Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 5:00 PM
Robert Novak, the man Jon Stewart ceaselessly caricatured as the "douchebag of liberty," died today at the age of 78. Before he became known as one of the men who was "hurting America" with the show Crossfire, however, Novak was one of the most high-profile and well-respected political writers in the business, most notably with his colleague Rowland Evans and their Evans-Novak Political Report.
In his memoir, published a little over a year ago, Novak managed to weave in an incredible number of revealing vignettes concerning some of the most prominent men of the last half century, including this memorable anecdote on Atlanta tycoon Ted Turner:
As we walked across Lafayette Square on the way to my office, Turner said "I can't understand, Novak, why you're in favor of all-out nuclear war." He then launched a defense of the Kremlin's arms-control policies and lauded the people's paradise in Cuba. I tried to argue back, but it was tough getting a word in edgewise with Ted Turner. When we reached my thirteenth floor office, I introduced him to a young woman in the Evans & Novak out office whose main job it was handling the phone calls. Turner looked her in the eye and asked: "How do you feel working for a man who is in favor of a nuclear holocaust?"The woman looked at Ted as though he were mad, and to a certain extent he was. I think it's easier for mad men to be creative entrepreneurs and visionaries, and that's what Turner was.
That about sums up Novak in a nutshell — he's a man who took joy in titling his autobiography "The Prince of Darkness," worked on the thirteenth floor, and wasn't too uncomfortable with people thinking he was in favor of a nuclear holocaust. It was fitting, four years ago, when Novak finally left CNN for (where else?) Fox News. Before that, however, and in between the crankiness and the grim posturing, he did put together a whole lot of great and memorable work.
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