Robert Novak, Sociopath

Dana Goldstein writes:

Robert Novak is driving a black corvette on K Street. He hits a pedestrian crossing the street in a crosswalk with a "walk" sign. And then he speeds away...until a vigilante cyclist, who also happens to be a partner at lobbying/law firm Harkins Cunningham, uses his bike to block Novak from evading the police!

This isn't the first time Novak's gotten in trouble with criminal driving. Fortunately, the 66 year-old man Novak hit has only minor injuries, which means Novak will probably only see a minor penalty. And that's too bad. The penalties for this stuff ought to be much stiffer. Morally speaking, what Novak was doing here is no better than walking down a crowded street with his handgun, firing off .22 rounds at random. "He's not dead, that's the main thing," says Novak but that's just a coincidence.

I hate, incidentally, that coverage of this is using the euphemism that Novak is known as an "aggressive" driver. He's a criminal. Cars are large, heavy, fast-moving objects that share space with delicate flesh-and-blood human beings -- piloting them in an illegal manner is serious wrongdoing.