Novak's dark observations

The late Robert D. Novak's memoir is filled with fascinating bits of political and journalistic history.

In "The Prince of Darkness," a sobriquet given him decades ago in part because of his saturnine visage, he tells of earning the wrath of neocon Norman Podhoretz for his column of Sept. 11, 2001, in which he quoted an intelligence outfit that said the state of Israel, whether by design or not, had gained the most that day.

Neocon David Frum later wrote an attack on him, Novak relates, for his opposition to the planned invasion of Iraq. Once the neocons consolidated their takeover of Bill Buckley's National Review, Novak's long association with the conservative journal went dead, he says. In fact, the Israelophiles did everything they could to marginalize him, a tactic that has been used -- not only by neocons and Bushites but by the neocons' strange allies on the hard left -- against all U.S. journalists who have not kowtowed to the official line about 9/11.

Novak also says that neocon Richard Perle made it clear shortly after 9/11 that he saw the attacks as an opportunity to push his hawkish Middle East agenda, with Congress hankering for a strike at any terror-tainted target, guilty of 9/11 or not. Interestingly, Novak relates, Bill Clinton got on famously with now jailed neocon media mogul Conrad Black. Clinton of course has been a major force in 9/11 coverup.

Novak is one of the few American journalists to point out that George H.W. Bush and his secretary of state, Jim Baker, frantically maneuvered to save Soviet communism, arguing that a Russia under Yeltsin would be incapable of safeguarding the Red nuclear arsenal.

(All my comments here should be read in light of the fact that I was compelled to use a doctored copy planted by some peculiar group. See post below.)