The Prince of Darkness or American Education

The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington

Author: Robert D Novak

New York Times Bestseller

A landmark achievement

The Prince of Darkness is not simply the stunningly candid memoir of one of the country’s most influential reporters but also a riveting history of the past half century in American politics.

The New York Times - Jack Shafer

Journalism is the first rough draft of history, Philip Graham, the publisher of The Washington Post, once said. Many Novak columns—including the Plame piece—are first rough drafts of journalism; they require further assembly by readers. While other writers concentrate on the arteries of power, Novak has made a specialty of the capillaries. Still, his book is an enlightening field guide to the politicians and journalists who inhabit those micro places.

Publishers Weekly

The barbs start flying on page one (Bush critic Joseph Wilson: "What an asshole!") and continue to nearly the end (CNN correspondent Ed Henry: "duplicitous phony") of this thick memoir by the conservative journalist and pundit. Novak recounts his journey from Associated Press cub reporter through longtime "Evans and Novak" columnist scooping up Beltway political dirt to ubiquitous talk-show talking head. Along the way he drinks and gambles, battles liberal media bias, wrangles contracts with cable channels, settles scores with critics (more-hawkish-than-thou pundit David Frum is "a cheat and a liar"), defends his outing of Valerie Plame and tosses in many old columns, which read like a seismograph tracing of political microtremors (Melvin Laird to be Nixon's defense secretary!). More tantalizing are the glimpses of his relations with official sources, who know they won't be attacked in print as long as they give good tips. Novak's insider perspective, vitriolic pen and damn-the-torpedoes frankness make it a lively and eye-opening account of big-foot journalism. (July)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Kirkus Reviews

The controversial conservative columnist bares all-or some, at any rate-to stake a claim for fame beyond naming Valerie Plame. To trust Novak, long ago nicknamed "the prince of darkness," he named Joe Wilson's CIA-agent wife as a sort of afterthought in the wake of a conversation with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. Why, Novak asks, would the CIA send Wilson, with no intelligence experience, off to check on whether Saddam Hussein was buying yellow cake uranium in Niger? Because his wife is in the agency, Armitage replies: And the rest, apart from a quick check of Who's Who, is history. "I have written many, many more important columns," Novak laments, "but the one on the CIA leak case will forever be part of my public identity." As if by way of rebuttal, Novak's memoir offers a rich self-assessment of his work. Regardless of what one thinks of his politics, which can charitably be branded as somewhere between paleoconservative and reactionary, Novak's abilities as a writer of vigorous, highly readable prose are not to be dismissed. And admirably for a journalist these days, Novak takes pride in his legendary scrappiness: "I am not a person who is easy for a lot of people to like," he writes. "No stirrer-up of strife is ever very popular." When he is not recounting his stinging disagreements with every administration since Ike's-his longtime partner Rowland Evans made Nixon's enemies list, but Novak, unaccountably, did not-Novak details the boozy world of Washington politics, writing, for instance, that Daniel Patrick Moynihan "was most qualified to be president and did not make it," thanks in good measure to an over-fondness for the sauce. Moreover, he tallies up his legendaryfeuds with just about everyone who is anyone-revealing, along the way, that political operatives such as Carville and Atwater can be as vicious to their own kind as to their enemies. Sure to be popular reading inside the Beltway, and worthy of an audience far beyond it as well. Agent: Esther Newberg/International Creative Management, Inc.

Table of Contents:

The Plame Affair     1
Political Beginnings     15
Cub Reporter     21
From Omaha to 'Naptown     28
Advice from Ezra Pound     36
Joining the Journal     42
Emperor of the Senate     48
Driving with Kennedy     58
New Frontier     70
LBJ Hosts a Wedding Reception     78
The Odd Couple     93
The Goldwater Revolution     104
The Agony of the GOP     114
The Great Society: In Ascent     123
The Great Society: In Descent     134
Clean Gene, Bobby, and LBJ     151
Realignment 1968     165
Den of Vipers     180
Vietnam     194
The Frustration of Power     201
"Amnesty, Abortion and Acid"     212
Watergate     233
The Ford Interlude     253
Reagan's Rebellion     268
Jimmy Who?     282
The Snopes Clan in the White House     296
Supply-Side and China     314
A Young Congressman from New York     333
The Birth of CNN     345
The Reagan Revolution     359
A Near-DeathExperience     374
The Slowest Realignment in American History     391
"I'll Try Ollie North"     404
The Last Days of Reagan     421
Blowup     437
Believing Their Own Spin     459
Yeltsin Up, Bush Down     480
Clinton = Republican Tsunami     501
"Will Success Spoil Newt Gingrich?"     518
Conversion     539
The Rise of George W. Bush     557
Death of a Partner     570
Attacking Iraq and Attacking Novak     584
The Plame Affair II     597
Farewell to CNN     618
A Stirrer-up of Strife     637
Author's Note     639
Index     641

Interesting book: Raw Food Primer or Spirituality of Wine

American Education

Author: Joel Spring

American Education — now in its tenth edition — continues its mission of providing a fresh, concise, and up-to-date introduction to the historical, political, social, and legal foundations of education and to the profession of teaching. Like previous editions, this one is notable for the way it challenges students and engages them in analysis and critical thinking about the role and purposes of schooling in American society. Revised every two years in order to guarantee current analysis of the very latest developments in today's educational issues, American Education's critical and broad scope make it an ideal text for beginning and advanced study of today's schools.

Clear, concise, and authoritative — compact and affordable, too — with scholarship that is often cited as a primary source, American Education brings up-to-date information and challenging perspectives to teacher educators' classrooms. For this revision all chapters were updated and extensive new material was added on race, gender, and special needs; attempts to impose the culture of the school on other cultures, specifically Mexican-American, Puerto Rican, Asian, and Native American culture; the differences between local, state, and federal control of schools and the role of high-stakes tests in the control of schools.