The Prince of Darkness
This entry was posted on 1/5/2008 9:27 AM and is filed under Books.
I just finished Bob Novak's magnificent autobiography. It took me all fall, as I don't take nearly as much time to read any more as I used to. I need to de-clutter my life so I can read more. By that I mean no more Sudoku in the bathroom! Dam puzzles are eating up all my free time.
"The Prince of Darkness" is a nickname Mr. Novak earned from his colleagues back in the early years of his career. It simply means "Conservative". Remember that when journalists scream that they have no political bias.
The book covers Novak's career from his first days in Washington and he wisely stays away from the stuff no one really cares about. No long dull descriptions of himself as a young man, his failed first marriage or the courtship of his second wife. He mentions that stuff only briefly, to keep the reader up on the facts. The book focuses on the interesting career of a reporter who was an insider on every campaign since JFK vs. Nixon. This, to a political junkie like me
NO I'M NOT! I CAN QUIT ANY TIME!!!
was absolutely fascinating. Novak was always a Republican but not always a conservative. This seems like a contradiction today, but two generations ago, the parties were not so closely aligned with left or right as they are now. There were plenty of conservative Democrats, like John Kennedy, who was a tax cutter and a cold warrior, and far more Republicans who leaned left politically than today. Novak writes about his support of Kennedy, his distrust of Nixon and far more interestingly, why he couldn't support Goldwater, who is remembered as a hard line conservative. Novak, who knew Goldwater quite well personally, before the senator ran for Pres. says that the man was a flake. Not for his political positions, which Novak agreed with, but for his temperament. He considered Goldwater all talk and no action!
He considered Bill Clinton a nice guy you couldn't trust. Nixon was a mean guy you couldn't trust. Reagan was a visionary who never took his eye off the prize and didn't sweat the small stuff, to the frustration of his admirers and adversaries alike.
In addition to the political campaigns and administrations, Novak goes into detail about his career in print and television. He writes about the newspapers and editors he worked for, the other reporters he worked and competed with and the different administrations he worked for during his long career at CNN.
By the end of the book, I was convinced that there isn't a single person in all of Washington D.C. or in the world of journalism who isn't a slimy, back stabbing asshole. The politicians are as bad as you think yet they're the nicest people in Washington. With one notable exception; Novak says Jimmy Carter lied about everything big and small and in describing the former president, paints a portrait of one of the most venal characters I've ever read.
To Novak's credit, he doesn't hold himself above any of this. He describes mistakes he made, stories he missed because of his own stupidity and trouble he got himself into through his own arrogance and big mouth. He sounds sad when he writes of relationships that went publicly sour with colleagues with whom he knew he disagreed but he "thought we enjoyed each others company." His far more congenial partner, Rowland Evans, actually had to tell him once Bob, so and so doesn't like you. Novak always seemed surprised and disappointed but never particularly hurt by the news.
It says a lot about a man who, after being immersed up to his bushy eyebrows in the steaming, sticky center of secular liberalism for over forty years not only became a hard core right winger, but converted to Catholicism as well. Depending on your point of view he is either a clear thinking truth seeker or a contrarian.
