“Some of his erstwhile political enemies filled the airwaves Tuesday eulogizing him, a practice that might have baffled the irascible giant slayer: He was not above excoriating the recently deceased, including Orlando Letelier, the Chilean dissident assassinated in 1976, or the journalist I.F. Stone, who died in 1989.“ Ron Kampeas, JTA
That his many critics would now eulogize Robert Novak, who died of brain cancer this morning, is not surprising as people will do anything to be on television, particularly journalists. But this blog is fundamentally against all the weepy revisionism and “yeah, buts” for Novak, one of the worst people there was in modern journalism. Good riddance.
Is that harsh? Unfortunately, so is Novak’s legacy. He was a template of what was to become of American punditry and cable news, and his influence was fundamentally destructive to the United States. You can read his big media defenders–who see his only failing as the Valerie Plame affair–to read his bright side.
The comments below focus on how corrosive the man was to the national discourse.
What is the legacy to which he most contributed? A cable news industry that does little else but incite the worst in Americans’ passions, which has helped to condition a portion of the American electorate to willfully believe lies in obfuscated debates over our most pressing issues.
Novak paved and spit-shined the way for the Keith Olbermanns, Sean Hannitys and Glenn Becks, and their imitators. Here is a collection of words around the web about Bob Novak:
David Zurawick, Baltimore Sun:
Novak titled his 2007 memoir, “The Prince of Darkness,” and he was indeed a very dark force in cable TV news contributing mightily to the toxic culture of confrontation, belligerence and polarization that so defines cable TV and American political discourse today. There is no way to be nice about his impact on cable TV during its formative years – and his contributions for the worse to the tone and style of what passes for political conversation today.
Phil Bronstein, San Francisco Chronicle:
There was Robert Novak, screaming at someone — probably Michael Kinsley on “Crossfire” — like an enraged health care town hall meeting participant: “Death squads in El Salvador is a liberal MYTH!”
I haven’t been accused of being a liberal all that much, and, as Christiane Amanpour said so wonderfully in Iraq, “Wolf, I can only tell you what I can see,” but I can tell you reliably that Salvadoran death squads were as real as Scooter Libby and Evans and Novak.
At the time, I wanted to reach through the TV screen and strangle the guy into sensibility. Or have the two tragic dead men delivered, without benefit of makeup, on his front lawn.
It wasn’t a liberal-conservative thing. Death squads were a fact.
Whatever else Bob Novak did well, even superbly in his professional life — a great deal, I don’t doubt — at that moment he did a huge disservice to the truth and to the memory of thousands of people who died violently, painfully and without justification in El Salvador.
Jon Friedman, Marketwatch:
In Novak’s last prominent chapter, he was best known for reporting leaked information in 2003, identifying Valerie Plame as a CIA operative.
He hid behind his journalistic reputation when he allowed himself to be used by the likes of Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and other members of George W. Bush’s inner circle. Novak was content to watch as the nation had to experience an agonizing investigation to explore what had happened.
To me, that underlines everything I didn’t like about Bob Novak and his particular style of journalism.
Alex Pareene, Gawker:
Novak’s role, which he understood and embraced, was to act as a proxy for political attacks by conservative politicians. You leaked your smear to Novak, and he reported that “neutral” Republican sources said something nasty about McGovern or Joe Wilson or even Fred Thompson. He was also generally considered a mean old man and his brain tumor was diagnosed after he was hospitalized after he hit a pedestrian in his black corvette and kept driving, claiming to be unaware that he’d hit anything.
Matthew Cooper, The Atlantic:
[T]here was a lot in Novak not to like, a mean gruff manner visible to anyone on TV, a stiletto pen that seemed more about destroying than illuminating. I disagreed with his politics but it wasn’t his politics which were infuriating. It was his arch, cutting style that made him one of the journalists I wanted to avoid becoming. It was his behavior in the CIA leak case that made me think still less of him.
The United States is better off without journalists and pundits that practice their craft the way this destructive, mean man did. He may have had talents as a journalist, but they certainly won’t be the legacy of the man with the fakest teeth in cable news.
Wikipedia photos to be deleted
NYC Wedding March – September 26, 2010
Joaquin Phoenix is a poser
Flushing Meadow Corona Park skate park
East Village Park and Williamsburg Bridge photos
100 People I Photographed for the Creative Commons
Pakistan flood devastation statistics
Cordoba House / Ground Zero mosque protest photos
The void in my blogging (and some photos)
Rihanna video with Eminem about Chris Brown?
David, my familiarity with Olbermann is based on the clips of him I’ve seen in which he responds to lies and hypocrisy on the part of the Right, and perhaps his Playboy interview. Although I have seen him scream a bit, I can only recall one instance of his doing this, and for the most part, I haven’t noticed him behaving like the Right’s propagandists. Have you observed otherwise? (I’m just curious.)
Twitter: davidshankbone
says:
Hi Luigi. The issue is the quality of discussion that we have in the United States has taken a jaw-dropping turn for the worse. While I lay most of the blame at the feet of the Republicans, they aren’t dancing alone.
I agree with much of what Olbermann says. He shares my politics, and he shares my outrage. The problem is that outrage, and doing things like calling people the “Worst Person in The World” is completely counterproductive to coming together with our ideological opposites to figure out how we can at least begin to address our national problems.
So, our problems are starting to go unsolved. History is rife with examples of powerful empires beset by internal discord that lend to their fall and/or collapse. It is cited as one of the causes of the collapse of the Roman Empire (along with decadence and materialism, an overstretched military, etc. – sound familiar?).
Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity are stoking the worst in American conservatives, and by cheering on the bottom-feeders that have made the Republican Party almost completely fringe, they are hurting the country. Whether we like it or not, the country can’t go on without both its yin and its yang.
In order to make that statement, American liberals need to look at their own house. I don’t think Olbermann is helping the debate. Lashing out, name-calling and degrading your respected opposition is something more suited for kitchen table talk, and not something that should be encouraged in a prime-time seemingly-serious national news discussion program.
Conservatives don’t respect liberalism, and Liberals don’t respect conservatism, and that has to stop. Both traditions have long, storied histories and philosophies that demand respect because they have both had hands in shaping the United States for the better. We may disagree, but all the name-calling and degradation by national opinion-makers needs to stop. Unfortunately, the right seems to have no boundaries for how far they will go, including outright fabrication.
He should have died in prison as the traitor he was. The outing he did of a political enemy put many people’s lives directly in jeopardy, not to mention our nation as a whole. Glad he died, should have never been born. Thanks