The bicyclist was David Bono, a partner at Harkins Cunningham, who was on his usual bike commute to work at 1700 K St. N.W. when he witnessed the accident.

As he traveled east on K Street, crossing 18th, Bono said a "black Corvette convertible with top closed plowed into the guy. The guy is sort of splayed onto the windshield."

Bono said that the pedestrian, who was crossing the street on a "Walk" signal and was in the crosswalk, rolled off the windshield and that Novak then made a right into the service lane of K Street. "The car is speeding away. What's going through my mind is, you just can't hit a pedestrian and drive away," Bono said.

He said he chased Novak half a block down K Street., finally caught up with him and then put his bike in front of the car to block it and called 911. Traffic immediately backed up, horns blared and commuters finally went into reverse to allow Novak to pull over.

Bono said that throughout, Novak "keeps trying to get away. He keeps trying to go." He said he vaguely recognized the longtime political reporter and columnist as a Washington celebrity but could not precisely place him.

Finally, Bono said, Novak put his head out the window of his car and motioned him over. Bono said he told him that you can't hit a pedestrian and just drive away. He quoted Novak as responding: "I didn't see him there."

A concierge at 1700 K Street said that she saw a bicyclist yelling and walked outside to see what the commotion was about.

"This guy hit somebody and he won't stop so I'm going to stay here until the police come," Aleta Petty quoted Bono as saying, as he stood in K Street, blocking traffic.

D.C. police confirmed that there was an accident at 18th and K streets NW at approximately 10 a.m. involving a black Corvette convertible and that the driver was a white male.

The intersection is in the hub of Washington's business district and is filled with pedestrians who work in the law firms and lobby shops that line the corridor.

Novak, 77, has earned a reputation around the capital as an aggressive driver, easily identified in his convertible sports car.

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Click here to see the Politico story and to watch video of Novak answering questions about the incident.
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In 2001, he cursed at a pedestrian on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 13th streets Northwest for allegedly jaywalking.

"'Learn to read the signs, [bodily orifice]!' Novak snapped before speeding away," according to an item in The Washington Post's Reliable Source column.

Novak explained to the paper: "He was crossing on the red light. I really hate jaywalkers. I despise them. Since I don't run the country, all I can do is yell at 'em. The other option is to run 'em over, but as a compassionate conservative, I would never do that."

Two years later, the same column reported that Novak had gone to a racing school in Florida.

"I've wanted to be a racecar driver all my life, and anyone who has watched me drive can tell you that," Novak said.

Anne Schroeder Mullins and Adrienne Smutko contributed to this story.

By Jonathan Martin and Chris Frates
Copyright 2008 POLITICO

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/2 3/politics/politico/main4286279.shtml

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McCain Veep Pick: Feint or For Real?
Conservative columnist Bob Novak's piece in which he suggested John McCain might well pick his vice president this week set off a firestorm around political Washington late yesterday afternoon as reporters and operatives scampered to follow the Prince of Darkness's reporting.

Subsequent reporting -- by The Fix, Jmart and others -- suggests that while McCain is in the final stages of making up his mind on who to pick, that no decision is imminent.

And, moments ago in an interview with Fox News Channel -- first reported by The Page -- Novak said that a senior McCain aide had passed along the information to him and suggested he put it up on the Web.

"I have since been told that this was something to get a bit of publicity, to rain on Obama's campaign," Novak said, according to a transcript from ShadowTV. "That is reprehensible, if true. We will find out if what I was suggesting was true or a scam."

So, was the story -- which The Fix helped to push by reporting that McCain was slated to huddle with Gov. Bobby Jindal (La.) tomorrow -- simply a feint -- and a well executed one at that -- by the McCain campaign or the genuine window into a far more accelerated decision-making process for the Arizona senator that was previously believed.

Our strong sense is that the feint option is the more plausible. McCain's campaign knows full well that it was going to be tough to tear the media away from their coverage of Obama in the Middle East.

But, what better way to do that than offer a bit of what looked like genuine news on the vice presidential front? The pull of vice presidential news is among the most powerful in political reporting; journalists see it as the big "get" of the presidential cycle and always remember who broke the identities of the vice presidential picks in each election.

By giving cable news and the blogosphere something else to talk about, the McCain campaign effectively changed the conversation -- albeit it for only 12 hours or so. (Obama's press conference this morning re-established his trip as the top political story of the day.)

And, in conversations with several neutral Republican operatives there was widespread dismay about the possible strategy of McCain naming his vice president this week in order to take some of the air out of the Obama balloon.

Doing so would, in the minds of many party strategists, reinforce the operating dynamic of the race in which Obama acts and McCain reacts. The goal for the Arizona senator has to be setting the agenda, the sources agreed, rather than counter-punching in a fight that McCain may not be able to win.

"The vice presidential choice and the nominating speech are the only two major events under their control and they must be done correctly, not in a reactive fashion," said John Weaver, a former senior aide to McCain's campaign. "If [Novak's report] is for real and they are about to name a vice president, it's campaign malpractice."

By Chris Cillizza |  July 22, 2008; 4:49 PM ET  | Category:  Veepstakes
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http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/20 08/07/mccain_veep_pick_feint_or_for.html ?hpid=topnews

I have wanted to put a stake through the Prince of Darkness' heart for many years, but I guess he did it to himself, and now it's just kind of sad.