What with all the back and forth about abortion flip-flops during the opening salvos of the Republican primary season, I thought there might be some interest in this excerpt from Robert Novak's upcoming autobiography The Prince of Darkness:

Everywhere George H. W. Bush went while campaigning for president in New Hampshire in 1980, he was followed by pro-life demonstrators denouncing him. The protestors were quiet middle-aged women who let their placards do their talking. I was the only journalist traveling with Bush. He said, almost to himself, “How am I going to get rid of these people? Are these people going to follow me around all year?” I said, “I’ll bet they do, George.” And when he responded, “How do I get rid of them?” I told him, “Change your position.” He did. I’m certainly not saying that my advice did it, and I never thought he would take me seriously. But he wanted to be president, and that is what the party activists required of him.

This, I believe, was the most important moment of Bush’s little trip to New Hampshire, though I did not realize it at the time.

On a side note, isn't it funny to think of careless internet consumers expecting Robert Novak to show up in their mailbox and instead finding a John Carpenter/Donald Pleasence horror flick, an Ozzy Osbourne live disc or a book on "radical evil" waiting for them?