Robert Novak, the legendary Washington reporter who died today, was often credited with the aphorism: “I have no friends. I have only sources and targets.” I was one of those targets. I have written about that experience elsewhere, and today is not the day to recapitulate it. Robert Novak was respected and liked by many, and their memories of him are the memories that deserve hearing today.
But there is one thing about Robert Novak that I have had in mind for some time, and today seems the appropriate moment to say it.
Novak was one of the people I discussed in a still-controversial 2003 article for National Review, “Unpatriotic Conservatives.”
That piece analyzed a group of conservatives so radically alienated from their country that not even the events of 9/11 could rally them to her cause. It was very grimly ironic that so many conservatives would denounce the Rev. Jeremiah Wright for preaching “the chickens have come home to roost” after the terrorist attack. The man who would later become the first editor of Pat Buchanan’s American Conservative magazine wrote exactly those words on September 14, 2001.
I stand by that article to this day, and I stand by the specific passages about Robert Novak. But in one respect the article did him an injustice, and today is as good a time as any to correct it.
Robert Novak for all his faults was never an unpatriotic American. I didn’t call him that in the article, but the title included him by understandable and inescapable implication. That was unjust, and the subtitle of the piece – “A War Against America” – which I didn’t see until it was too late to alter – was even more unfair to Novak. I have regretted for some time not being more precise in my criticism of him, and it’s no excuse for my fault that he never regretted being imprecise or worse in his criticisms of others.
16 responses so far
1 ottovbvs // Aug 18, 2009 at 5:39 pm
“That piece analyzed a group of conservatives so radically alienated from their country that not even the events of 9/11 could rally them to her cause.”
……..Ironic that 80% of the country is now where these “radically alienated” conservatives stood back in 2003…….I’ve no brief for Novak who was a bit of a shit and whose whole career was dotted with ethical transgressions but on this he was entirely right
2 Rodak // Aug 18, 2009 at 6:20 pm
I shall now practice what has long been preached to me: “…”
3 brutus1791 // Aug 19, 2009 at 8:51 am
Interesting enough, this after Stacy McCain’s thought-provoking article on the whole “Unpatriotic Conservative” piece and Novak’s death: http://spectator.org/blog/2009/08/18/bob-novak-one-of-my-favorite-u
4 DFL // Aug 19, 2009 at 9:16 am
Robert Novak was proven right with regards to Iraq, especially if we are to use the late James Burnham’s dictum on the Middle East which was that the only vital American interest in the Middle East was underneath its soil, nothing else. Over 4000 Americans have died in Iraq at a cost of nearly $ 1 trillion. Not only was it not worth it as policy in itself, the Iraq War and Occupation also was instrumental in the decimation of the Republican Party in 2006 and 2008.
As for David Frum, he has many achievements as a conservative writer, especially “Dead Right” and “What’s Right.” But his National Review diatribe “Unpatriotic Conservatives” was a mistake of great proportions, probably written for the dual reasons of what was then a new-found respect for George W. Bush(Frum readily admits he didn’t think much of Bush prior to 2001) and a strong hatred for Pat Buchanan. An ironic twist to the whole controversy is that National Review’s founder William F. Buckley came to regret the Iraq Was and joined Buchanan and Novak as “unpatriotic conservatives.”
5 joedee1969 // Aug 19, 2009 at 9:55 am
I will miss the truth he told. Not many out there left:
http://americaspeaksink.com/2009/08/the-socialist-boogieman-in-the-dark/
6 ottovbvs // Aug 19, 2009 at 9:55 am
dfl // Aug 19, 2009 at 9:16 am
“But his National Review diatribe “Unpatriotic Conservatives” was a mistake of great proportions, probably written for the dual reasons of what was then a new-found respect for George W. Bush”
…………To be honest I’m surprised to find him drawing attention to that piece which was to put it mildly rather hysterical………..I suspect the reason it was written had more to do with the party line than respect for Bush or Buchanan hatred
7 sinz54 // Aug 19, 2009 at 10:02 am
ottovbs sez: “.Ironic that 80% of the country is now where these ‘radically alienated’ conservatives stood back in 2003″
Not entirely. Some of those “radically alienated” conservatives, like Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan, are still way more extreme than the rest of the nation.
Pat Buchanan has written books and articles suggesting that it was a mistake for the U.S. to have ever fought the Nazis in WW2. (He has stated that might have been better for the West to give Hitler a free hand in the East.)
He blames WW2 on Churchill’s intransigence, not Hitler’s “Lebensraum” expansionism. So he actually ends up claiming that it was Churchill, not Hitler, whose actions got the Jews slaughtered!
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=67578
While “80% of the nation” now agrees that the Iraq War was a mistake, they are not blind isolationists like Buchanan who are sorry that we didn’t “allow” Hitler to destroy the USSR. Or like Ron Paul, who thinks we should recall our military forces to our own borders and huddle behind a Maginot Line of defensive forces.
And I don’t think you are either.
Just setting the record straight, like I always do.
8 ottovbvs // Aug 19, 2009 at 10:55 am
sinz54 // Aug 19, 2009 at 10:02 am
“Just setting the record straight, like I always do.”
………more likely manning the non sequitur mills…….Buchanan was only one of these people and his slightly loopy views on world war 2 and other matters have have zero connection with the Iraq war……I find Buchanan(rather like you actually) to be something of a schizophrenic……most of the time off the wall but occasionally with very shrewd insights which just proves that even a broken clock is right at least once a day
9 DFL // Aug 19, 2009 at 11:42 am
Although I would agree that Buchanan’s musings over the lead-up to World War Two are self-destructive and almost pointless, there are a few angles in which to discuss Buchanan’s views of that period of time. Sorry if I raise these angles in scattershot form. First, many British Conservatives, but not Winston Churchill, thought during much of the 1930s that Nazi Germany was a bullwark against Soviet Communism. Many American conservatives, including Buchanan’s father, shared such views. Second, any alliance France and Britain had with Poland was empty as neither had the will to go on the offensive against Germany in 1938-39. Third, a large majority of Americans wanted to stay out of the war at first and only very slowly, starting with the shocking defeat and surrender of France in 1940, did American public opinion reluctantly accept that war with Germany was inevitable.
10 ottovbvs // Aug 19, 2009 at 1:40 pm
dfl // Aug 19, 2009 at 11:42 am
“Second, any alliance France and Britain had with Poland was empty as neither had the will to go on the offensive against Germany in 1938-39.”
……….The British and French govt’s didn’t guarantee Poland until the spring of 1939 essentially in reaction to Hitler’s occupation of the remainder of Czecho…….it was hardly an “empty” alliance since when Hitler invaded Poland both France and Britain honored the guarantee and declared war on Germany……I can’t say they did it with great enthusiasm since France knew that any war with Germany was going to be fought on their territory and the British knew that the British Empire and France which had combined GDP that was about 75% of Greater Germany’s couldn’t defeat Germany unaided. ………As for the US you’re wrong there too………while opinion moved in the direction of the British the American public never accepted that war with Germany was inevitable…..lease lend passed by a whisker, the draft law passed by one vote I think, and as late as the fall of 1941 there was a majority against entering the war………this is why FDR who did want to enter the war on the side of Britain maneuvered the Japanese into a position where they had no option but to start a war……..and even then a declaration of war against Germany was by no means certain but Hitler took the problem away by declaring war on the US on December 11th.
11 Darkness Loses Its Prince « Around The Sphere // Aug 19, 2009 at 2:27 pm
[...] David Frum at New Majority [...]
12 DFL // Aug 19, 2009 at 4:49 pm
otto, I agree that after France fell a majority of Americans still were against entry into the war but there was a little movement in some polls I’ve read. I think there was a bit of a psychological jolt for many Americans. However, a big move in the polls did not come until the USS Greer suffered casualties battling a german submarine in September of 1941.
I think you will agree that it was unfortunate that the French did not go to war with Germany when Hitler decided to militarize the Rhineland. I think Hitler would have been ousted from power if the French Army would have routed the small German force in the Rhineland.
13 ottovbvs // Aug 19, 2009 at 6:05 pm
dfl // Aug 19, 2009 at 4:49 pm
“but there was a little movement in some polls I’ve read.”
……..Sure there was, I agreed with you, but nothing like a majority even after the Greer incident and if FDR had entered the war the congress would have gone nuts……..sure the British and French should have moved when Hitler re-occupied the Rhineland but that was really their last chance……from 1937 onwards any attempt to militarily contain Germany was going to mean a major war……the problem with the Rhineland as a casus belli was that it was technically German terrritory and there was just no willingness to bring on a major war as it would have been even then although the allies would have had a much better chance of prevailing than later(btw I don’t buy the notion the German army would have overthrown Hitler to whom they had made a personal oath of loyalty when in the middle of a war with Britain and France) ……I entirely understand Chamberlain’s efforts to avert a war, he was wrong but not irrational, and when it came down to it the British and French signed on for a war they knew they probably couldn’t win, while the US sat on its hands. This is why to this day the Brits and French get so ticked off about lectures from the yanks about how “we won the war”……if anyone did the Russians did which is not in any way to decry the huge American and British effort but to see things clearly.
14 DFL // Aug 20, 2009 at 9:08 am
Joachim Fest, Hitler’s most astute biographer, thinks that the German army would have overthrown Hitler if the Rhineland gambit had led to war with France. Fest, an old-fashioned conservative, may have been engaging in wishful thinking. Fest may be right. You may be right. Of course, the French sat on their hands.
I generally agree with you about Chamberlain. I would add that many conservatives show their ignorance of the situation in 1930s Europe, Munich and especially Chamberlain. Many conservatives, especially neo-conservatives, seem to forget that Europe experienced a depression about as bad as ours. Your average Frenchman, Briton, Belgian, Dutchman and the rest much preferred to spend less money on arms rather than on butter, so to speak. Due to the realization of the pointless destruction of the Great War, the sentiment was very much against war, especially in the democracies. Another point lost on many conservatives is that Chamberlain’s delay of war allowed the building of the Spitfires and Hurricanes, which I believe just got on line in 1938. Those planes came in handy in 1940.
15 barker13 // Aug 20, 2009 at 11:45 am
dfl // Aug 19, 2009 at 11:42 am (#9) –
WW1 was the greatest tragedy of the 20th century due to all that came out of it.
If only the war had been avoided altogther, or, had ended quickly and not turned into trench warfare…
(*SIGH*)
But history is what it is. Such is human existence.
(*SHRUG*)
BILL
16 ottovbvs // Aug 20, 2009 at 5:33 pm
dfl // Aug 20, 2009 at 9:08 am
“Joachim Fest, Hitler’s most astute biographer, thinks that the German army would have overthrown Hitler if the Rhineland gambit had led to war with France. Fest, an old-fashioned conservative, may have been engaging in wishful thinking.”
…….I agree with you about Fest……quite the best and most insightful biographer of Hitler……however he is widely considered in Germany as something of an apologist for the traditional ruling classes in the country who conspicuously failed to come together and stop Hitler…….I know this from both my own reading and it’s confirmed by my son in law who is a member of the trad German ruling class…..so maybe Fest is giving them the benefit of the doubt…….I just find it difficult to believe that the German army who had sworn a personal oath to Hitler and to whom an oath was sacred would have overthrown their leader in the middle of a war with the traditional enemy who had vanquished them only 18 years before and against whom they were itching for revenge…..does it seem likely to you?
…….When the British went to war in 1939 they were voting for the end of Britain as a world power……Chamberlain and Halifax were much more clear eyed about this than Churchill who had an element of fantasist about him…….Ultimately Hitler crossed the bridge that had been at the heart of British foreign policy since Elizabeth I……just as the Kaiser did in 1914…….no single power could be allowed to dominate the Western European land mass and control the ports of the low countries…..at the end of the day it was that simple
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