Novak Schmovak

Hey Folks -

Leaonard Pitts Jr. is a good man and I love his columns. His position in this one, regarding Robert Novak's recently diagnosed brain tumor is honorable and, in a lot of ways, wise. But it isn't the only honorable position; and I think it is flawed in an important way.

Here is the column (I've highlighted part of it). I'll discuss it below:

Those who cheer Novak's illness are product of our ugly politics
Thursday, August 7, 2008
By Leonard Pitts Jr.

I haven't read Robert Novak's column in 10 years.

Back in 1998, he made a comment on CNN -- what it was is not material here -- that I considered beyond the pale. I decided I could henceforth do without his opinions and insights. He impressed me as a distinctly disagreeable man. And that was well before he outed covert CIA agent Valerie Plame.

When the news broke a few days ago that Novak has a brain tumor and would retire, I was not made prostrate by grief. What I felt was that whisper of common mortality, that sense of there-but-for-the-grace-of-God one usually feels when tragedy strikes someone who is known to you, but not too closely. I felt sorry for the man and for his loved ones. It did not occur to me to celebrate their misfortune.

In this, I am evidently different from a number of observers who have infested Internet Web sites with exultation over the columnist's diagnosis. To be sure, the majority of bloggers and posters -- even those put off by Novak's often brusque conservatism and abrupt personality -- have wished him well. But there has been no shortage of those who are unable to attain that level of grace. One calls Novak's fate evidence of God. Another calls him a scumbag. Still another claims this proves "Republicanism" is a mental illness. LOL, it says.

And then there's the message board of Novak's home paper, the Chicago Sun-Times, where whoever is in charge of deleting offensive content is surely working overtime to keep up with the invective. I managed to snag two of the messages before the censor got hold of them. One expressed the hope that Novak "suffers like the victims of his lies." Another said, "May he rest in pain."

There is nothing new here. Similar responses attended the late Tony Snow's battle with the cancer. And Michael Savage, a barely housebroken radio personality, played a song by the Dead Kennedys when news broke that Sen. Edward M. Kennedy had been diagnosed with brain cancer.

The intention, I imagine, is to debase those with whom one has political disagreements. The authors of this sort of abuse evidently don't realize that what they really debase is themselves -- and political discourse as a whole.

Yes, it is fair, even now, to offer a harsh critique of Novak's politics. But there is something fundamentally indecent about celebrating his grave illness. Osama bin Laden, I might understand; he's a mortal enemy. Novak is just a columnist with whom some of us disagree.

But then the distinction I draw no longer exists in the minds of many, raised as they have been on talk-radio diatribes, accustomed as they are to spewing vitriol from the anonymity of the Internet. For them, disagreement is the very mark of a mortal enemy. For them there is no such thing as the sort of easy bonhomie among opponents that allowed, say, Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill to share a drink at the end of a long day spent fighting one another in the political trenches.

It is a sweet picture that might as well be painted in sepia tones, so long ago does it seem. Today, there is no bonhomie. Politics is war. In war, one does not drink with enemies. One does not reason with them or seek common ground. One simply hates them. One simply kills them.

That's the mentality you're seeing here -- politics as war -- and it is not pretty. The thing is, there are truths above politics and one of them is that you do not laugh at the other guy's tragedy. How estranged are you from your own humanity, how deficient was your home training, when you need to be reminded of that?

Friend or foe, there is only one word any of us should feel compelled to offer Novak right now:

Godspeed.

Leonard Pitts Jr. is a columnist for The Miami Herald.
lpitts@miamiherald.com

* * * * *

Folks -

Robert Novak certainly IS a distinctly disagreeable man who, among many other things, outed covert CIA agent Valerie Plame. Like Mr. Pitts I was not made prostrate by grief, and I heard the whisper of common mortality and I felt sorry for the man’s loved ones. But I did not feel sorry for the man. I celebrated his misfortune, and I hope that Novak suffers like the victims of his lies.

Moreover, I agree that many times – especially as practiced by Novak, Bush, & Co. - Republicanism is a mental illness.

Does saying all that degrade me? No.

Do I feel degraded? No.

Should I? No.

Why?

First of all, consider home training. I’ll bet Pitts’ mom and my mom told us pretty much the same things, good and wise rules for interacting with regular folks – one of which was not to celebrate their misfortune. I agree with that – for regular people. I also believe in forgiving my enemies – but after they have shown remorse and been punished.

Novak is neither a “regular” person nor remorseful. Pitts puts Novak in the regular category – just a guy with whom one has political disagreements (like Reagan and Tip O’Neil), not a mortal enemy like Osama bin Laden. Well, that’s where we disagree.

Reagan and O'Neil were not regular folks. They had more in common with each other than they did with the people. They were "above" us arguing over policies that had little effect upon them but had radical effects upon us. They were like two opposing lawyers who can go like hell in the court room and then go out drinking together afterwards - it's no skin off their noses. When one isn’t touched by political actions, it’s easy not to take it personally.

I don’t think the amiable Gipper would have fared very well going out alone to drink with a bunch of fired air traffic controllers - not much chance of easy bonhomie at that watering hole.

As someone said, but with a different context, "Politics ain't beanbag." What politicians (especially Republicans) do to the poor, the young, minorities, women, workers, soldiers, foreigners and others is not beanbag. Slavery, lynching, child labor, secondary citizenship for women; unnecessary, illegal, and immoral wars; imperialism, mistreatment of veterans - on and on - have been and continue to be the fruit of politics. That's not beanbag, and the people whose lives have been ended, dwarfed, misshapen, perverted, or otherwise degraded have no responsibility to follow Mom's dictum in regard to their political tormentors and their lapdog pundits - such as Novak.

Abusers of the people, as are most Republicans, never seek common ground and are not susceptible to reason. They have been zealously true to destroying the New Deal since its beginning. They are for and of the upper class, and don’t mind a bit degrading everyone else. They see it as their right, refuse to see anything wrong with their behavior, and – as a result – do not and cannot feel remorse.

Were politicians and their Sophist mouthpieces ever held to appropriate accounting, punished appropriately for their treatment of regular people, they could be pitied, forgiven, and granted compassion in their personal tragedies.

But they are not, and they should not. President Bush has nearly destroyed this nation, broken laws and traditions, caused thousands of unnecessary deaths and injuries, and he will never be called to account, smirking, strutting, and talking to God until the end. Twisted distinctly disagreeable pundits like Novak have supported the degradation, benefited financially and professionally from it, and share responsibility for it. Novak is not sorry; he’s just out of time. Otherwise he’d be pumping away, pushing to deepen Americans’ degradation.

The only price men like Bush and Novak will ever pay for their inhumanity toward their fellow man is whatever personal “tragedy” they face as individual mortals. So, I am not degrading myself when I appreciate Novak’s personal “tragedy,” when I hope he and others like him suffer like the victims of their lies and that they rest in pain.

All of us will face personal tragedy. But all of us have not spent years of our lives ruthlessly working to benefit ourselves by serving elite benefactors, by zealously supporting the infliction of pain and personal tragedy upon the masses of humanity here and around the world.

These people are irredeemable scumbags. Whatever personal pain and agony they may face on their way out the door, it can’t come close to what they have helped push on the "little people." They don’t deserve an easy exit; the more suffering the better.

- Uke Man