Timing, as they say, is everything. And if you make a big announcement that you’re running for president–and you hope to make the front page of your hometown paper–perhaps make your announcement, as City Pages points out, on any day other than that following a natural disaster. “Any other day, it would have made the front page. But that’s what he gets for making his big publicity push the day after a deadly tornado rips through his home state.”

Human Events confirms that longtime conservative columnist and pundit Robert Novak has died at the age of 78. Novak was diagnosed with brain cancer last August, which prompted his retirement.

Novak’s column was syndicated by the Chicago Sun-Times for more than 40 years. In a moving obituary, the Sun-Times editorial board highlights the journalistic qualities that elevated Novak above the rest of the political commentariat: