Columnist Robert Novak diagnosed with brain tumor By DENISE LAVOIE, Associated Press Writer
33 minutes ago
Conservative political commentator Robert Novak announced Monday he has been diagnosed with a brain tumor, less than a week after he struck a pedestrian with his Corvette and drove away.
Novak, 77, fell ill on Cape Cod this weekend while visiting his daughter and was rushed to Brigham and Women's Hospital, where he said he was diagnosed Sunday with the tumor.
"I will be suspending my journalistic work for an indefinite but, God willing, not too lengthy period," Novak, editor of the Evans-Novak Political Reports, said in the statement released by his publisher, Eagle Publishing.
Novak has been a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times for decades. His assistant, Kathleen Connolly, told the newspaper that doctors had not yet done a biopsy to determine if the tumor was malignant.
She said Novak was alert and talking in the hospital's intensive care unit. Novak's office refused further comment to The Associated Press, other than to confirm the comments on the newspaper Web site.
Hospital spokesman Kevin Myron confirmed Novak was a patient, but said Novak requested that no further information be released.
Last week, Novak was given a $50 citation after he struck a homeless man with his black Corvette in downtown Washington. Novak kept going until he was stopped by a bicyclist, who said the man was splayed on Novak's windshield.
Novak is best-known as the longtime co-host of CNN's "Crossfire," where he bumped heads with liberal co-hosts from 1980 to 2005, when he left to join Fox News as an occasional contributor.
Novak was criticized after he was the first to publicly reveal the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame in a 2003 column. His column came out eight days after Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, said the Bush administration had twisted prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. |
