Robert Novak redux

So now it turns out that the victim of syndicated columnist Robert Novak's hit-and-run pedestrian scuffle is not, as earlier reported by us and everyone else, 66 years old -- he's 86 years old. And homeless. And forgiving. And kind of tickled at all the attention.

Don Clifford Liljenquist told WMAL radio in Washington D.C. that Novak's account -- the columnist who outed Valerie Plame as a CIA operative said he didn't know he'd hit anyone until he was stopped by a bicyclist -- is plausible.

"Yeah, it's possible that he didn't know he hit me. The vehicle was moving at 10 miles per hour or something like that, and the driver might not have seen me, because I rolled off and fell down to the pavement. So, yeah, it's possible that he didn't see me. He wasn't paying attention to his driving."

Mostly he seemed delighted to hear that he had been hit by a famous person.

"Bob Novak is the one that hit me? Well, everybody knows who Bob Novak is! He's a famous journalist! . . . I was struck by Bob Novak? . . . Well, I think that makes it a great story!"

-- Johanna Neuman

Comments

[Donna Liptak]

I cannot believe a person could hit another person and not know it. I think he should have been charged with hit and run.

[skiddie]

I think it's worth highlighting his last sentence: "He wasn't paying attention to his driving."

Anything's plausible considering that, but I think that when people say that 'he must have known that he hit somebody,' it's based on the assumption that he was, you know, looking out of his windows; or paying attention to his driving.