Word: novaks
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Bork was one of a 6-to-5 majority on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals that voted last month to dismiss a libel suit against Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, whose Washington column appears in about 180 newspapers. In his 37-page concurring opinion Bork suggested that the courts ought to be stricter about the rash of libel suits. He did not mention General William Westmoreland's $120 million suit against CBS--in which the general's attorney vows to "dismantle" CBS News--or former Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon's $50 million suit against Time Inc. Bork...
Evans and Novak had been sued by Bertell Ollman, a Marxist professor at New York University, who claimed that he lost his chance to become head of the University of Maryland's political science department because of a column they wrote criticizing his proposed appointment. He sued for $1 million, plus $5 million in punitive damages, sums that Bork called "quite capable of silencing political commentators forever...
Some years back, in a poll published in the Washingtonian, Evans and Novak were voted the "least respected" in the Washington journalistic establishment by their press corps colleagues. They specialize in puffing up tendentious controversies, usually based on tips and leaks from right-wing sources, but colleagues acknowledge that they are often first on a story, and their reporting is well grounded. It was their mixture of fact and opinion (what the law calls "hybrid statements") that disturbed some of the judges...
...Court said in Gertz vs. Robert Welch, Inc. that "there is no such thing as a false idea," meaning that opinion is not punishable; opinions should be countered not by judges and juries but by "the competition of other ideas." But facts can be false and actionable. Evans and Novak had quoted one unnamed political scientist as saying that "Ollman has no status within the profession, but is a pure and simple activist." Is that an opinion, or a fact subject to verification? To Judge Antonin Scalia, who is also a Reagan appointee on the court of appeals, this...
...pastoral letter written by a group calling itself the Lay Commission on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy is any indication, then Americans just might not be ready for the radical changes called for by the Bishops. Jointly headed by former Treasury Secretary William E. Simon and Michael Novak of a Washington based think-tank, the lay critics advocated further economic development as the only real basis for greater social justice. The group, composed of notable business leaders and educators like Professor of Government James Q. Wilson, lavished praise on American capitalism, calling it the most effective economic system...