Bob was a gloriously flawed, constantly seeking child of God who will be followed on his path by many prayers of those who knew him. In the history or our time he was a writer whose scrupulous honesty and rigorous fairness illuminated one "crisis" and "scandal" after another, and enobled the otherwise sad state of journalism.

I first met Bob in 1963 when George Gilder (old friend, Discovery co-founder) and I were undergraduates at Harvard, publishing a rebel Republican magazine, Advance. We interviewed Bob and his co-writer, Rowland Evans, about the condition of the Republicans in Congress. We all agreed, it turned out, that they were ill-serving their mission.

On occasion, George and I provided fodder for Evans and Novak and their column in the New York Herald Tribune. We enjoyed their company at the Republican Convention in 1964. I myself went to work for the Trib in '65 and when the paper folded in '66 (I had nothing to do with it--promise!) I happened to be in the office of Walter Thayer, Trib President and Everyone's Mentor, when Bob called to ask Walter if he thought Bob and Rollie should try to go with The Washington Post. Walter agreed that it was a good idea, and I think the Evans and Novak column must have lasted 35 years, until Evans' death, and then another decade while it was the Novak column.

At every turn Bob Novak was a no-nonsense newsman who scooped all kinds of other people, some virtuous, some not. In the early days he and Rollie were Kennedy liberals, then unpredictable, then both veered right. By the Carter years they were fed up with the Left and became one of the few column outlets for news items that conservatives wanted ventilated. Among other things, they defended Ed Meese in the Reagan years when he was being grilled by the Left in Congress. They managed all the while to keep their Washington Post slot, largely (I suspect) because they kept breaking and making news, as well as reporting it.

I don't think that is at all wrong for a columnist; in fact, there is a certain admirable sport to it. Novak was an opinion former, mainly because he was a true news breaker.

Crusty, acerbic, Bob was perversely beloved for his unlovable public persona on TV as well his column. In essence, everyone knew that his ultimate loyalty was to the truth as he saw it. And the truth as he saw it increasingly had a faith in America and our system of government and economics behind it. He also had a redeeming sense of humor.

I saw a bit of Bob in recent years, usually when he was traveling the country in support of conservative youth development. By conservative he meant the principles of the American founding and the principles of free enterprise. And the principle--forever--of no nonsense.

In his last big contretemps he was involved in exposing the political machinations of CIA analyst Valerie Plame. Oddly, he did not become an issue, only a platform in that pseudo-scandal. The victim, it turned out, was not Plame (what a joke), but Scooter Libby in the White House, sacrificed at the end, sadly, by President Bush, who should have pardoned him. (Bob would have agreed completely with that.) This is another story, of course.

The main thing is that hard-working Bob Novak gave far more to American journalism than almost any of his contemporaries.

In his private life he traveled the path of skeptical secularism to a surprising conversion to Catholicism and the moving account of same that he provided in his final book, The Prince of Darkness. For all of us, he remains a symbol of integrity.

Blessings and peace upon him.