Breaking News: Robert Novak is dead.
The Prince of Darkness is gone.
More info to follow...
(Sorry about the brevity, digging for details now...)
Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak, one of the nation’s most influential journalists, who relished his "Prince of Darkness" public persona, died at home here early Tuesday morning after a battle with brain cancer.
Robert Novak was no friend of freedom. Yet, he will be eulogized by the wingnuts on the same level as Walter Cronkite -- who they continue to villainize weeks after his burial with snarky posts about the memorial service announced in his honor today. They will make rude comments about how "the media" isn't giving Novak the same honor as Cronkite rightfully received. It won't dawn on them that the reason for that might be Novak concentrated on tearing down while Cronkite focused on building up.
Novak was typical of his fellow travelers. If you can't say something nice about someone -- write a 500-word column and call that person all sorts of vile names. His politics were the politics of the sneer, the innuendo, the half-truth and the outright lie. He was, from all appearances, an angry, bitter man.
I think we need to avoid the trap of speaking ill of the dead with the same kind of 4th grade taunts that the wingers would employ when a pundit from our side of the aisle gives up the ghost. As we discuss this, I would ask folks to remember that he died of the same affliction that Teddy Kennedy is suffering from. Cancer is no respecter of persons... or politics. We can talk about his politics, the harm he has done, the lives destroyed by his words. But let's refrain from the same kind of celebrations we on the left can expect from the thugs on the right when our heros die.
Let's talk about the evil men do, because as the Noble Anthony remided us... it lives long after them, even as the good is interred with their bones.
So let it be with Novak.