Longtime observers of the John Locke Foundation know that syndicated political columnist Robert Novak has made many appearances in North Carolina to speak for Locke Foundation audiences. He?s also appeared on Carolina Journal Radio.
You might not know that Novak and long-time writing partner Rowland Evans are credited with popularizing the term ?backlash.? William Safire makes that claim in his Safire?s Political Dictionary.
Credit for the word?s popularization belongs to the Washington columnist team of Rowland Evans and Robert Novak. After the Birmingham, Alabama, riots in the summer of 1963, President Kennedy?s depressed-areas bill was defeated in the House. In the June 16, 1963, New York Herald Tribune, Evans and Novak wrote that the defeat was due to other causes and was not ?the first backlash of civil rights turmoil.? The columnists used the word frequently afterward, and ? gave it currency.
In a clip from his most recent CJ Radio appearance, Novak explains how Washington has changed since his early days as a reporter in the 1950s and 1960s.
