Robert Novak has a selective memory. In the years since I left The Capital Gang (Saturday version) I have not spoken publicly (and scarcely privately) about the circumstances of my departure. But Novak’s description of events in his memoir contains serious distortions that cry out for correction.
Novak writes “Mona Charen and the Capital Gang were not a match made in heaven.” That is true. He suggests it was due to a personality clash between Al Hunt and me. Not quite. It wasn’t that we disliked each other; it was that Al Hunt behaved abominably when I had the effrontery to disagree with him. One of the early clashes concerned an “Outrage of the Week” in which I criticized the Wall Street Journal. Hunt became apoplectic. He descended to personal insults and became so visibly out of control that hundreds of viewers wrote to me wondering if I was okay.
Bob Novak took me to lunch and explained that it was I who had been out of bounds. “You can’t criticize the Wall Street Journal,” he said, shaking his head. He went on to make some comments about the other panelists that I choose to keep private even now so as not to cause unnecessary pain to anyone, but suffice it to say that Novak urged me to endure Hunt’s temper tantrums. I was never to comment on anything Al Hunt had written in his column as this was apparently beyond the purview of the program.
Novak recounts an on-air confrontation between Hunt and me dating from the floor of the Democratic Convention in 1992. He does not say that it was a totally one-sided outburst by Hunt. CNN President Tom Johnson happened to be present and afterwards he took me aside and said “Listen, I am so sorry Al Hunt treated you that way. We don’t tolerate that kind of thing at CNN. If it ever happens again, you come to me.”
It did happen again. On this occasion, Hunt became so angry that I actually wondered if he was going to hit me. (A day later I received a call from Bill Safire. We had a good laugh about it which made me feel much better.) Remembering Tom Johnson’s offer, I did call him – not as Novak contends to complain about Novak failing to stick up for me, I don’t think Novak’s name even came up – but about Hunt’s increasingly hysterical behavior.
A few weeks later, I was asked to leave the show. I did not know until reading Novak’s book that Tom Johnson had said I would have to agree to an exit. It wasn’t presented to me as anything but a dismissal. I did wind up on a show I enjoyed doing much more, Capital Gang Sunday, with panelists who were collegial and professional.
Novak and I had always been on good terms while I was a panelist on the program and though I did not like his coddling of Al Hunt, I continued to feel some residual affection for him. A number of years later, I ran into his daughter at a reception and felt a burst of bonhomie toward the whole family. I sent Bob a note suggesting that we let bygones be bygones. He never replied.