Firmly planted in the print world with his widely read syndicated thrice-a-week column, Bob also was an innovator in the electronic media. With the CNN programs “Capital Gang” and “Crossfire,” Bob pioneered the brash, no-holds-barred public affairs programming so familiar to viewers of cable news television today.
But more than that, his contributions to the great debates of the day demonstrated that Bob was someone who thought deeply about his country, its system of government and the challenges both faced. For example, in his 2000 book Completing the Revolution: A Vision for Victory in 2000, Bob offered his views on how America should build on the freedom legacy of President Reagan. (more)
Until the Plame controversy, Novak had largely been known as a strong anti-Communist in his foreign policy views. He also was an leading advocate of supply-side economics, a belief that tax cuts would lead to widespread financial prosperity.
David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union lobbying organization, said that Novak helped transform supply-side economics from a fringe idea into a tenet of President Ronald Reagan's economic policy. Keene called Novak "a giant of the profession" who "gave respectability and visibility to conservative ideas and positions in the 1970s, when they were mostly dismissed."
For those who believed the Cold War should be won, Novak’s Sonnenfeldt Doctrine column was a gift that kept on giving. Eight years later I was director of the Reagan Administration’s Voice of America when top State Department official Lawrence Eagleburger summoned me to his office. He was enraged by tough VOA editorials damning Polish strongman Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski as being “Soviet imposed” on the people of Poland.
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