Human Events is reporting that long-time influential conservative columnist Robert Novak has passed away after battling a brain tumor. In a 2004 interview, Novak explained how he would like to be remembered:

I’m seventy-three years old and would like to leave some legacy. Nobody will remember my newspaper columns or television appearances. They won’t remember me for my writing. … I have a Novak scholarship fund in perpetuity, and I am the founder and chair for writing at the University of Illinois. That is how I want to be remembered.

Novak will be remembered for outing the identity of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson in 2005, as part of the Bush administration’s battle to spin the American public on the Iraq war (even though Novak himself was a skeptic of the Iraq war). Last year, Novak said that while he had been thinking “about my life and what I’ve done right and not done right,” he wouldn’t have done anything differently. In 2007, he explained what he envisions heaven to look like: “I’m going to a place where there are no blogs.”

During a recent interview with the National Ledger, conservative columnist Robert Novak was asked if he would reveal Valerie Plame Wilson’s secret CIA identity if he could go back and do it all over again. Novak noted that he has previously said he “should have ignored” what he had been told about Plame, but he now claims he is “much less ambivalent“:

NOVAK: I’d go full speed ahead because of the hateful and beastly way in which my left-wing critics in the press and Congress tried to make a political affair out of it and tried to ruin me. My response now is this: The hell with you. They didn’t ruin me. I have my faith, my family, and a good life. A lot of people love me — or like me. So they failed. I would do the same thing over again because I don’t think I hurt Valerie Plame whatsoever.

But of course, Plame was “hurt” because of Novak’s column — she no longer has a career as a covert CIA agent. Moreover, Plame has said that she feared for her and her family’s lives after Novak revealed her identity.

But Novak ignores the point that Plame’s outing had broader national security implications. In fact, Plame’s CIA job was to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and as one former senior intelligence officer put it, the leak made “it harder for other CIA officers to recruit sources.”

Novak also claimed “it was an important story because it explained why the CIA would send Joe Wilson [Plame's husband] — a former Clinton White House aide with no track record in intelligence and no experience in Niger — on a fact-finding mission to Africa.” Except, Wilson did have experience in Niger, not only as a foreign service officer but as the NSC’s Senior Director of African Affairs during the Clinton administration as he explained to TPM:

WILSON: Why me? Because I knew a lot about the [uranium] business [...] I knew all of the personalities who would have been involved in this sort of interaction, because I had been at the White House during the time when the transaction purportedly took place.

Earlier in the interview with the National Ledger, Novak said that Vice President Dick Cheney is “the most forceful, effective vice president in history.” Given the dark “cloud” that hangs over the vice president’s involvement in the whole Plame saga, it is perhaps easy to understand Novak’s lack of remorse.

Conservatives are reeling after Tuesday’s progressive victories, desperately insisting that the country remains center-right, holding secret soul-searching meetings, and floating the idea of a revived “Project for a New American Century” to help neocons in the wilderness.

In short, conservatives are holding out for a hero. In his newest column, Robert Novak says that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is shaping up to be the best hope:

In serious conversations among Republicans since their election debacle Tuesday, what name is mentioned most often as the Moses, or Reagan, who could lead them out of the wilderness before 40 years?

To the consternation of many Republicans, it is none other than Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House.

Gingrich is far from a unanimous or even a consensus choice to run for president in 2012, but there is a strong feeling in Republican ranks that he is the only leader of their party who has shown the skill and energy to attempt a comeback quickly.

Gingrich appears to be consciously positioning himself as a possible savior. He has been working to shape the next generation of GOP foot soldiers in Congress, allegedly whipping up last-minute opposition to the financial bail-out package in September. NBC’s Mike Barnicle said that conservatives told him this event was “the opening salvo of Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign four years hence,” although Gingrich has denied any such involvement. Gingrich even appeared as a “guest star” in the GOP energy protest over the summer, which conservatives considered “America’s greatest hour.”

Gingrich may have stiff competition from Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK), whom many conservatives are also mentioning as a possible 2012 candidate. After all, Gingrich may be likened to Reagan and Moses, but can he send “little starbursts through the [tv] screen“?

Conservative pundit Robert Novak was admitted yesterday to a Boston hospital where he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Novak said in a written statement:

On Sunday, July 27, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I have been admitted to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, where doctors will soon begin appropriate treatment.

I will be suspending my journalistic work for an indefinite but, God willing, not too lengthy period.

Novak, 77, made headlines last week when he was “cited by police after he hit a pedestrian with his black Corvette in downtown Washington, D.C.” Novak said at the time, “I didn’t know I hit anybody.”

After Robert Novak struck a pedestrian in his black convertible this morning, news outlets reported that the victim suffered only “very minor injuries.” But D.C.’s ABC affiliate WJLA now reports that the pedestrian “is in worse shape than first thought.” The 66-year-old male victim “appeared somewhat incoherent, said the source who had seen the victim. The man appeared to have casts on his neck and back. The victim was X-rayed and a surgical team plans to evaluate him, the source said.”

Politico reports that conservative pundit Robert Novak “was cited by police after he hit a pedestrian with his black Corvette in downtown Washington, D.C., Wednesday morning.” Novak initially “drove away from the scene,” but turned around when “a bicyclist stopped him and said, ‘You hit someone.’” Novak claimed: “I didn’t know I hit anybody.” But Washington DC’s local ABC affiliate interviewed the bicyclist who saw the incident. WJLA’s Suzanne Kennedy reported live from the scene:

I just spoke with the bicyclist about three minutes ago. He tells me that the pedestrian was actually splayed across the front of Novak’s convertible, and that there would be absolutely no way Novak would have not known that he had hit someone.

Watch it:

Politico notes that in a 2001 interview with the Washington Post, Novak said, “I really hate jaywalkers. I despise them. Since I don’t run the country, all I can do is yell at ‘em. The other option is to run ‘em over, but as a compassionate conservative, I would never do that.”

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The criticism over the people-powered YouTube Democratic presidential debate has been pouring in from the right. First, the White House announced President Bush wasn’t really big on the debates. Then, leading conservative candidates Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani begged out of the Republican forum. Now, Robert Novak is adding his gripes.

Appearing on Bloomberg Television this weekend, Novak said of the YouTube debate, “I thought it was really disgusting. … The reporters were terrible but this was ludicrous.” Novak argued, “You know when we did away with the monarchy and went through democracy, there was a lot of fear that this sort of thing would happen. It took 200 years but we got there.”

Watch it:

Something about power in the hands of the masses appears to trouble Novak deeply. Recently, he suggested heaven would be a “place where there are no blogs.” He previously explained that bloggers “bloviate. They give their opinions. They don’t try to find things out.”

Bloviating has no place when it does not come from Novak’s mouth.

Transcript: Read more

The right-wing is rallying around World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz by claiming that his critics disagreed with his anti-corruption agenda. Today, American Enterprise Institute scholar Kevin Hassett writes, “Wolfowitz’s One Sin Was Waging War on Corruption.”

This weekend on Bloomberg Television, conservative pundit Robert Novak went further, saying it was “a left-wing conspiracy to get rid of him.” Novak argued that critics simply want to replace an American with a European. He then chided columnist Margaret Carlson, telling her, “I bet you you want to get the Americans out too, so your European buddies can be as corrupt as they wanna be.” Watch it:

Countering public corruption is a serious issue that unites progressives and conservatives. Fighting it requires moral, competent leaders — qualities which Wolfowitz lacks.

The question hanging over Wolfowitz’s head is whether a man who has made countering public corruption his top agenda item can continue effectively in his post when it has been revealed that he engaged in the type of act he is seeking to end. “Your credibility as a leader in the fight against corruption…is certainly harmed if there’s a perception” of actions inconsistent with good governance, said Frank Vogl, cofounder of the watchdog group Transparency International.

This weekend, a group of 42 former top World Bank executives wrote:

For the Bank to succeed, it must be effective, especially on matters of good governance which Mr. Wolfowitz rightly emphasized as crucial to poverty reduction. What staff objected to was not the principle — which they applauded. Rather it was that the policy was implemented with no consultation, and little transparency or apparent consistency.

Nobody faults Wolfowitz for trying to fight corruption. They have issues with him engaging in it.