Novak Contends Brain Tumor May Have Contributed to Hit-and-Run Accident

By: E&P Staff Creators Syndicate pundit Robert Novak has written a column called "My Brain Tumor."

In the piece posted today on Creators.com, Novak contends that the tumor (not yet diagnosed at the time) may have played a part in the columnist's July 23 hit-and-run accident in Washington, D.C.

Novak -- who was driving his Corvette when he hit a pedestrian -- said "I have lost not only left peripheral vision but nearly all my left vision, probably permanently. Several people have asked me whether the person I hit was crossing in front of me on my left. I answer, 'I never saw him.'"

The columnist went on to say that, once the tumor was diagnosed, an oncologist "estimated that I had six months to a year to live."

Also, Novak reported that Ted and Vicki Kennedy helped him when it came time to choose a doctor for surgery. "I have had few good things to say about Teddy Kennedy since I first met him at the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, but he and his wife have treated me like a close friend," wrote the conservative commentator.

"The Kennedys were not concerned by political and ideological differences when someone's life was at stake, recalling at least the myth of milder days in Washington."

And Novak, in alluding to a statement Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson made about the need for the pundit's Corvette to be taken away, referred to the "Valerie Plame 'scandal'" with the unapologetic use of quote marks around "scandal."

In a 2003 column, Novak revealed the identity of then-CIA agent Plame, whose name was leaked by two Bush administration officials after Joseph Wilson wrote a New York Times op-ed piece accusing the administration of twisting facts to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq.