An Honorable Man

Robert Novak, an authentic American monster, is dead. May all good people spit three times. Most of what he believed was wrong. He was unkind and uncharitable. He was also a real reporter once, when we had reporters, before the colleges got hold of them. He was a grouch. He was mean. He was a white man with a sports-car complex, poor bastard. Like so many monsters, he was a Catholic. Unlike them, he came by it honestly, which is to say, through conversion. I always kind of liked the guy. He was a genuine crab. I would've drunk scotch with him, and I wouldn't have felt badly if I woke in the morning with a bandaged hand and no memory of punching him in the face. They don't make them like Bob anymore. Properly considered, he was the conservative answer to Hunter S. Thompson, who was himself a mad sort of conservative, or, at least, gun-happy. They would've liked each other, I suspect. Good night, sweet prince.