Getting near Robert Novak can be hazardous
A few days back, by his own admission, columnist Robert Novak apparently got played by John McCain's presidential campaign. Today, he got cited by police.
It wasn't a journalistic faux pas that earned him a ticket from Washington's finest, but something far more serious -- hitting a pedestrian while driving in the city's crowded downtown. Luckily, the victim suffered only minor injuries. Novak, who as detailed by Politico.com seemed not have realized an accident had occurred, ultimately was cited for failing to yield the right of way.
Novak understandably might have been preoccupied reflecting upon his recent interaction with McCain aides over the timing of a running mate pick by the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, but it was something else that had him distracted.
TMZ.com scored an after-accident interview with Novak, in which he revealed he had been listening to "Morning Edition" on NPR in his Corvette and was unaware until stopped by other pedestrians that he had hit someone.
Our friends at The Swamp also have more on the incident, as does our Countdown to Crawford blog.
-- Don Frederick
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
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Has anyone checked to see if the injured pedestrian is a CIA agent fighting nuclear proliferation?
Novak tends to want to destroy these kinds of people...
Posted by: trai_dep | July 23, 2008 at 01:40 PM