Whenever someone learned that I worked as a reporter for Bob Novak, he or she would ask, “What’s he like in real life? Is he different from how he is on television?”
No. Bob Novak was no phony.
Once he told me that letting women join the National Press Club had ruined the organization. (Though he admitted he had voted to let them in.) Upon finding out I had no siblings, he sniffed, “Only children are weird.” (He was also an only child.)
On those frequent drives from his Pennsylvania Avenue office to Capitol Hill in his black Corvette (air conditioner blaring in the Washington summer heat, despite the convertible top down), I would wait, wide-eyed and stiff, for his next zinger. It was Crossfire on Wheels.
With Bob Novak, what you saw was what you got. And it was impossible — if you had any appreciation of humanity — not to love him.
We on his staff would hear him slam down the phone after a raucous disagreement with someone. Then his door would swing open, and he would emerge with an empty coffee cup, looking for a lightning-fast refill of the thick black sludge that jelled in a rusty pot on a credenza all day. “And why don’t I need any sugar in my coffee?” he’d ask us.
“Because you’re already sweet,” we’d sing back.
“That’s right,” he’d nod, and retreat to his computer.
And sweet he indeed was.
Sure, he’d say things like “Americans take too much vacation,” and “I don’t believe it’s hard to quit smoking; I did it cold turkey.” He was always out to rankle, it seemed.
But as passionate as he was about politics and sports, so was he too about his beloved family and his Catholic faith. His contributions to charities are legendary, and his interest in shepherding young conservative interns and cub reporters into journalism careers makes him a candidate for sainthood (at least during an Obama administration).
When the day came in 1999 for me to leave his nest after five years of tutelage, I told him I’d accepted a job as the editorial-page editor of the Manchester Union Leader. He disapproved. He wanted me to break news and make news, like his incomparable column did three times a week. “Can I tell you an off-color joke about editorial writers?” Yes, Mr. Novak.
“Why is writing an editorial like taking a p*** in a serge wool suit? It feels great, but nobody notices!”
I took the job anyway, and the following year we had dinner in Manchester as he reported on the Bush v. Gore election. “I have to hand it to you,” he told me. “You’ve really done a great job up here.” The Prince of Darkness went on complimenting me for what felt like an election cycle. He was just so sweet.
It’s true, what they’re saying in the eulogies: No one worked harder; no one broke more news; no one was more influential in Washington journalism.
My own eulogy would be, “There was no man more sweet.”
– Bernadette Malone is an editor and writer living in New York.