Robert Novak Retires



(image via CNN)

We have called feisty Chicago Sun-Times journo Robert Novak "our favorite Dickensian" villain for 3 years now, not because he would starve an orphan -- he wouldn't -- but because he is such a singular human type: 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." Dickensian villain, indeed!

Actually, we kind of love Novak in a grandfatherly journo kind of way. His column is a must-read for DC gossip and has been for 50 years, and our heart leaps a little every time he makes a cranky television appearance. That is why we are sad to hear that he has retired. From the Chicago Sun Times:

"Robert Novak has announced his immediate retirement following the diagnosis of a brain tumor, a prognosis the Sun-Times' political columnist describes as 'dire.'

"'The details are being worked out with the doctors this week, but the tentative plan is for radiation and chemotherapy,' Novak said.

The Evans-Novak column was first distributed by Publishers Newspaper Syndicate on May 15, 1963, with the New York Herald-Tribune, the flagship newspaper. When the Herald-Tribune folded in 1966, the Chicago Sun-Times became their home newspaper."

This blog wishes Robert Novak and his family the best in this time of suffering.