Robert Novak: Prince of Darkness, King of the Jungle
Washington confessionals tend to revolve around a familiar victim, cruelly neglected if not outright oppressed by the author, who knew the right way all along: himself. Why, if only the temptations of modesty were resisted long enough to heed that precious sage, milk and honey might be marinating our very bunions as we speak.
Robert Novak has refreshingly spurned this formula in The Prince of Darkness, his own substantial Washington memoir, and the result will be like crack to political junkies. My mini-review of the book is up at the Washingtonian now.
Here is a tantalizing excerpt:
The only surprising thing so far is that, unlike most insider accounts, Novak’s is never an example of what it disdains; his half century’s experience in our fair capital meshes perfectly with his own gradually developed belief in small government. But for anyone eager to rest on clichés of how power corrupts absolutely, a further surprise is in store.
