Eric's Beijing Diary

Robert Novak is known as the melancholic counter-balance to the more phlegmatic Rowland Evans. More recently, he has become known for his work on television. He helped to start the McLaughlin Group on public television, and started a program on CNN called, "The Capital Gang." But in future generations, he will be known for this book.

As a history buff, I often have to read books that are really not about history, but contain items of interest that you cannot find elsewhere. This book, in sharp contrast, is a treasure trove of historical information. I was born in Japan, but my parents were Americans, and I made my first trip to the United States in the spring of 1957, when I was three years old. In that same year, Robert Novak moved to Washington D.C. to work in the AP Washington bureau. So this book is a political history of the United States over the span of my lifetime. You can understand my interest.

I don't remember the election of 1956 ("Don't change the team in the middle of the stream."), because I was only two years old. But I remember 1960 well. I was in first grade. We had an election in class, and I voted for Nixon. I followed every election after that. I registered to vote when I was a senior in high school, and voted for the first time (officially) for Nixon the autumn after my graduation. Do I regret that vote? Not really, because I don't think McGovern was a serious alternative. But this book told me some things about Nixon that were not apparent to most people, and I'm not just talking about Watergate.

Ever wonder where all those government leaks come from? This book will tell you. Who was it that said, "The people don't know McGovern is for amnesty, abortion and legalization of pot. Once Middle America--Catholic Middle America in particular--find this out, he's dead?" You wouldn't believe it if I told you. But Novak will tell you, because the individual in question is no longer living, so the need for confidentiality has expired. This book contains many of these fascinating tidbits, insights, and perspectives. Novak made a career (with Evans) of reporting exclusives, and this book is full of them.

The greatest strength of this book, though, is the refreshing contrast it offers to the ocean of Internet "journalists" who litter the Internet with their compulsive outpourings, which are either ill-informed rants, or shameless paraphrases of other people's work. Many of these folks are bloggers, of course, but you would be surprised how many of them actually make their living writing purely from what they read in the papers. I read an article recently by a guy who was bemoaning the decline of print newspapers. He said, "People think that newspapers can be replaced by the Internet, but if conventional newspapers disappear, where will we get the information we need to write Internet articles?" ??? Where does he think the people who write newspapers get their information? Somebody has to do the actual reporting.

Novak epitomizes Edison's well-worn statement that "Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration." He got his own information. He talked to people. He went there and found out what was really going on. This is old-fashioned journalism at its best. Novak seems to take it for granted, but he is a hard worker. Doing things this way he did was work. Lots of work. It was fun, but it was work. It was fascinating, and exciting and stimulating, but it was work. Lazy people cannot produce the kind of quality that Novak was known for.

So why should you read this book? This book would appeal to two kinds of people. I have already mentioned history. This book is a political history of the last half of the Twentieth Century. You will read the stories that were not told, and the reason they were not told. Case in point: Joe Kennedy bought Virginia for his son in the 1960 election by bribing the sheriffs who controlled the voting process. Why was the story kept under wraps for thirty years? Because the story would have come out just before the Democratic convention, and the top brass at the Wall Street Journal did not feel it was their place to influence the choice of the Democratic candidate. In fairness to the Journal, they said they could not break the story because their sources refused to sign affidavits. You decide for yourself why this corruption was hidden from the American people for a generation.

The other type of person who could really benefit from this book is a budding journalist. This book could also be subtitled, "Career Path for a Political Journalist." Novak describes every step of his career path, gives information about how he got the job in each case, his salary, and the equivalent value in 2007 dollars.

Novak made mistakes. His departure from the McLaughlin Group was a real loss. They needed him more than he needed them. Not sure what he could have done, but perhaps he should have apologized to McLaughlin. Novak is a man with strong convictions. Not hard to see how he would have trouble getting along with someone like McLaughlin, who is the furthest thing from an ideologue. But ideologues do not typically make good moderators, and McLaughlin is, hands down, the best moderator in the business. But while I think Novak left the McLaughlin Group too early, I also think he stayed with CNN too long. For those of you who don't remember what CNN was like before it became so trashy, I remember when CNN started. I watched the interview Ted Koppel did with Ted Turner on Nightline. Turner was talking about how modern (1980) commercial television had degraded, and he wanted to provide something wholesome for the American people. I was struck by this, and a bit sceptical, but you know, whatever you think of Turner, his network really did start out that way. In my opinion, Novak stayed until long after CNN had become a lost cause. Part of this was contractual, but I sometimes think I would have been inclined to leave television altogether, rather than stay with an outfit that had become so completely given to trivia. CNN has become the "soap opera" of network news.

Perhaps my negativity comes from the fact that I believe America is clearly a civilization in decline. To the extent that men like Evans and Novak did their part to live and work as men of principle and honor, and slow the insidious demoralization of society, we should thank them. And we should also express our thanks to their families, who had to bear with a work schedule that was very intense and demanding. We are all in their debt.