The Accusation Morgan Made Up Phony Email Addresses as John
Fund in his deposition claimed the email account, johnfund2001@yahoo.com, was never his. He accused Morgan of making up and using the account. The fact is Morgan started the account for him in August 2001, at his request, leaving the password unfilled on the computer in their home. John then put in the password and started the account. Morgan never had access.
Here below you see Fund refer to the account in an email exchange with James Taranto, asking him to send the copy to him after it is edited at two addresses, his "wjs address" and this one: johnfund2001@yahoo.com.
Here is the article as it appeared the next day.
From the WSJ Opinion Archives:
Fund in his deposition claimed the email account, johnfund2001@yahoo.com, was never his. He accused Morgan of making up and using the account. The fact is Morgan started the account for him in August 2001, at his request, leaving the password unfilled on the computer in their home. John then put in the password and started the account. Morgan never had access.
Here below you see Fund refer to the account in an email exchange with James Taranto, asking him to send the copy to him after it is edited at two addresses, his "wjs address" and this one: johnfund2001@yahoo.com.
Here is the article as it appeared the next day.
From the WSJ Opinion Archives:
-----Original
Message-----
From: Fund,
John
Sent: Tuesday,
November 20, 2001 9:21 PM
To: Taranto,
James; Miniter, Brendan
Subject:
Political Diary
Can you e-mail final copy to
address?
Thanks.
Prince of
Darkness Sheds Some Light
Bob Novak, a
syndicated columnist for 38 years and a fixture on CNN
for two decades,
looked just a tad uncomfortable receiving the
National Press Club's award
for lifetime achievement last week.
Bob has seen enough Beltway awards
dinners filled with flattery in his time to be leery
about being the
subject of one. But then the roasting of the man Washington
journalists
have dubbed "The Prince of Darkness" began and Bob began
to enjoy himself.
There's nothing like creating a role for yourself
and then having your
peers recognize you for being good at it.
But in
addition to poking fun at Bob's tough-guy image, the dinner speakers also
recognized the talents that have made Bob's
"Inside Report" the best
shoe-leather "reported" column in America. Bob may
have passed his 70th
birthday, but he outworks most journalists two
generations younger than
he is. I should know. I became the first reporter that
Bob and his late
partner Rowland Evans ever hired back in 1982, and both
of them always
outdid me both in savvy AND stamina.
The roasters
-- Jack Germond of the Baltimore Sun, Fred Barnes of the
New Republic and
Mark Shields of PBS -- poked gentle fun at Novakian
foibles, especially his
passion for following basketball teams on the road
and then finding a
convenient political story in whatever city he was in.
They also
effectively
lampooned the writing style he and Rowly Evans
perfected -- an insider argot
that constantly referred to "secret memos" and "little-noticed meetings" took on major policy and political
significance.
An hilarious
sendup of a "lost" Bob Novak column prepared for the
Press
Club dinner
can be found at the Weekly Standard's website
(subscription required)
Mark Shields
joked that Novak really wasn't as important as he
thought he
was in
Washington: "After all tonight's Press Club banquet room is the only one in
town without a metal detector." As he said that, I looked around and
noted that while the room was filled with interesting
people, no elected
officials or cabinet officers were in evidence. In part
that was because
Congress had already cleared out of town for the
weekend and the war was no
doubt occupying Bush officials, but the observation nonetheless
held. Bob is a fine journalist, but
not one to cozy up
too close to
politicans, the stray exception such as Jack Kemp not withstanding.
Bob isn't a Republican, he's a tough reporter who does
his
own roasting
of people on both sides of the aisle.
But he's also
of an old school that recognizes how blessed he has been
to
have had a
chance to have a career in which he can tell people what he thinks. When
Bob stood up to give his response to the
"roasters," he thanked his
family and the people who took a chance on him
during his career. He
also took time to recognize the print and TV outlets that
paid his bills --
"I know who I work for, and it isn't the
government."
Bob finished
up by having some fun at the expense of the many sources
for his column who
were in the audience. He noted that he had learned one important
thing in his 43 years in Washington: "There are two
kinds of people in this
town. Sources...and targets, and you better make up
your mind which you
are." But in reality there is a third kind of
person: readers and
viewers. There remain more than enough of those, both in Washington and
all over the country, who appreciate Bob
Novak to keep him a valuable
political tip-sheet and provocative influence on
American journalism for
years to come.