I, Novak



(image via CNN)

Wouldn't Robert Novak make the perfect Dickensian villain? Think of the full bodied lips, those impeccably tailored three-piece suits, that single-minded devotion to a capital gains tax cut, and, finally, the beady eyes that conjure forth forbidding images of ... (sotto voce) "Ebeneezer."



*The Corsair shudders* (image via Shakespearefest)

Clearly, The Corsair can imagine Our Favorite Pundit denying a hungry orphan a second helping of warm gruel. (Averted Gaze)

That having been said, we kinda like Novak's column. While The Corsair rarely agrees with Novakian thoughts, we find him full of insidery Washington scoop, and, better still, he bashes Republican excess as well as Democratic tomfoolery.

Still: How convenient that at this moment in time, Robert Novak finds himself working on his autobiography. Fortuitous serendipity indeed! The Prince of Darkness, we learned via Howard Fineman on The Chris Matthews Show, is hard at work weaving the disparate spiderweb-like strands of his life into a Unified Field Theory of -- well, what?

Well, the Story of Novak would have to contain his conversion to Catholicism, to be sure (Of which, former Senator Moynihan once remarked, obliquely, that as Novak is a Catholic, getting him to become more "Christian" would be the next, but more difficult, step). And, without question, there would be Novak's conversion to Free-Market Capitalism (Lots of dramatic pendulum swings in le vie Novak). And -- what else? -- the Plame affair, of course. According to the CNN News Group president Jim Walton, reported on by The Washington Post:

"When Bob Novak wrote that column he wrote it for the Chicago Sun-Times. And I was not privy to who his sources were ... that did not go through the editorial process at CNN. He has broken no laws and he has distinguished himself as a journalist for many, many years ... He brings a different voice to our air."

Sure, his voice is different; Novak's voice is also, quite frankly, mucho truculent, and, well, fraught with ungodly amounts of viscid saliva (Say it, don't spray it, Novak!). The Corsair wonders -- aloud (The Corsair sips an aged champagne; lights Sobranie), always aloud -- what a Prince of Darkness memoir would sound like when it sees the light of day. Hmm?

Would Novak strike the harsh tone of Saint Augustine in Confession Book VI, regarding DC not unlike Imperial Rome? (The Corsair exhales Sobranie) We cannot wait.