T A B L E__T A L K Do fashion magazines leave you feeling battered or amused? Share your pain in the Media section of Table Talk - - - - - - - - - - R E C E N T L Y Under the Covers By James Poniewozik 1997's wrap-ups, unwrapped (01/07/97) Sex please, we're Brits! By Sarah Coleman When it comes to book-cover illustrations, the Brits are fond of the naughty bits (01/06/97) Men's Health By Chris Haines The sweaty-chested hunky-boy rag that dare not speak its readers' name (01/05/97) Bestseller Hell By Jon Carroll Jon Carroll ponders the best way to read "Babyhood" by TV star Paul Reiser (12/24/97) Merry fiction to all! By Laura Miller The New Yorker's new fiction issue is a like a Christmas stocking full of good, familiar candy (12/23/97) - - - - - - - - - - BROWSE THE MEDIA CIRCUS ARCHIVES

______sleaze, smears and spleen: A __N O V A K __WAY OF KNOWING HE'S JUST REPEATED A DISGRACEFUL LIE THAT I.F. STONE WAS A COMMUNIST SPY. SO WHY IS RABID ATTACK DOG ROBERT NOVAK STILL TREATED AS A RESPECTABLE COMMENTATOR? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - BY ERIC ALTERMAN | Robert Novak is one of the most respected and admired pundit-reporters in Washington. His column runs regularly in the Washington Post and he has his own round-table talk show on CNN and hosts another with his partner, Rowland Evans. He is also a much-beloved figure among the powers that be. When Wall Street Journal honcho Albert Hunt and PBS icon Judy Woodruff launched their first celebrity/journalist roast to raise money to combat spina bifida years ago, they chose Novak as the inaugural honoree. The whole journalistic establishment turned out in one of those sickening evenings of mock mockery. None of this would be worthy of comment were Robert Novak not also a deeply dishonest ideologue who exploits his media prominence to promote his cronies and lie about his enemies. He has done so, unapologetically, since the 1960s. That he continues to be treated as a serious commentator and responsible reporter speaks volumes about how degraded the mores of contemporary American politics have become. Novak has been misleading his readers for nearly 40 years now. In his early decades, he would do so rather subtly, by picking out favorite politicians and attaching favorable adjectives to their names, while doing the reverse to those with whom he disapproved. An extreme conservative, he almost always chose the most regressive politicians -- of either party -- for his favored love-bombs. In those days, in the Evans and Novak (nicknamed "Errors and No-Facts") column, we would often find references to the "hard-boiled centrist Robert Strauss"; "backroom Republican super-power Melvin Laird"; "canny, powerful Wilbur Mills," who was "the only poet in the political hurricane now besetting the Democratic party." That "poet" turned out to be a corrupt old drunk who took payoffs from big business and went swimming in Washington's Tidal Basin with strippers, but because he also spoke at Evans and Novak-organized CEO retreats, he remained in the columnists' good graces long after he became a national laughingstock. The flip side of these wet kisses was a neo-McCarthyite rampage that Novak undertook against liberals of all stripes. In 1972, readers were treated to Novak's description of SNCC as an organization "substantially infiltrated by beatniks, left-wing revolutionaries and -- worst of all -- by Communists." The New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, he wrote, "is studded with past and present Communist Party members." A McGovern rally was attended by "McGovern zealots with long hair, bizarre costumes and peace signs." In one of the most influential political columns of all time, Novak quoted a Democratic senate colleague of McGovern's labeling his politics those of "acid, amnesty and abortion." The label stuck and it helped sink McGovern. Richard Dougherty, a former McGovern aide, insists the quote was fabricated. McGovern told me he believed the same thing. The authors later conceded that McGovern's position on pot was "ambiguous" and admitted that he "opposed marijuana whenever asked." By way of explanation, Novak said, "We are not under any compunction to give a balanced report." Was Novak inventing this famous quote? There's no way to know for certain. Over the years, he has continued to send valentines to those he loves -- to Newt Gingrich, Iran-contra figure Elliot Abrams, Salvadoran mass murderer Roberto D'Aubisson -- while implying that liberals and Democrats are either stupid, disloyal, gay or all three. Alone among respectable columnists, for instance, Evans and Novak published unsubstantiated and untrue rumors that former Democratic House Speaker Tom Foley was gay. Unwilling to take responsibility for the smear, they attributed the lie to "Horace Busby, a much respected Democratic Party insider." I got to know Novak a bit while writing a book on Washington pundits during the late '80s and early '90s. He didn't like me, hated my politics, but was eager to use my book to attack his former friend John McLaughlin by passing along unsubstantiated (but probably true) rumors about the former Jesuit's strange off-camera antics. After my book was published, Novak and I appeared on "Crossfire" together. During the show, Novak insisted that my professional mentor in journalism, the late I.F. Stone, had been in the pay of the KGB. This story, which had surfaced months earlier, had been thoroughly examined by the reporter whose misunderstanding had caused it and laid to rest in the New York Review of Books. I had even had occasion to speak with the KGB agent whose garbled words had caused right-wing ideologues to try to spread this lie, and he told me there was nothing to it. Since Stone was dead by this time, however, Novak was free to make his McCarthyite accusation without fear of a libel suit. CNN did not respond when I wrote the network's president asking how he planned to correct Novak's patently false statement about Stone. Novak was at it again this week on C-Span. I had been slated to appear with him, but he canceled rather than face up to defending himself. When I was told that Novak would not appear with me, I canceled my own appearance, since it was no longer worth the trip to Washington. He therefore did appear, and when I called in to the show to give him the opportunity to explain his cowardly decision, Novak repeated the lie that Izzy Stone had been in the pay of the KGB, but offered no substantive evidence. The audience could not, of course, determine which one of us was telling the truth. Novak was on camera and could simply laugh it off. There is no penalty for a pundit lying on TV and no penalty in Washington to his reputation. Lying in an attempt to smear an honest man's reputation in the service of one's own ideological convictions is considered part of the game. And what an ugly game it is that has made a man such as Robert Novak one of its great success stories. SALON | Jan. 8, 1998 Eric Alterman is an MSNBC contributor and a columnist for the Nation.