Conservative columnist Robert Novak has retired following the diagnosis of a brain tumor. The Chicago Sun-Times political columnist will be undergoing treatment at the National Cancer Institute in Washington, DC, after he was diagnosed with an apparently advanced tumor following an incident in which he hit a homeless man with his car in Washington. He struck the pedestrian with his Corvette and drove away before he was stopped by a bicyclist.

Apparently, Novak did not see the man, and investigations revealed that he had a brain tumor. He describes his prognosis following the diagnosis of a brain tumor as "dire," but radiation and chemotherapy will be attempted.

Novak, who was born into an Illinois Jewish family in 1931, went to work as a sportswriter for The Champaign-Urbana Courier after he quit the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he was an undergraduate student. Later, he would graduate from U of I.

Novak converted to Catholicism in 1996. In November 2007, he claimed in his column that Clinton's campaign was spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about Barack Obama, but has decided not to use it. His column is allegedly the nation's longest-running current syndicated political column.

Robert Novak's political views are interesting, as he is some sort of a conservative Democrat, and his wife Geraldine was a secretary for President Lyndon Johnson. Novak retired from CNN after 25 years on December 23, 2005. His memoir, entitled Prince of Darkness: Fifty Years Reporting in Washington, were published in July 2007 by Crown Forum, a division of Random House.