[Paladin2b]

I think people are missing the point about Michael Kelly's integrity. He was no right-wing ideologue. Michael Kelly was a liberal, but he stemmed from the old school of hard-drinking, union member, non-college educated New Deal or GI Bill Irish Catholic reporters who used to dominate the nation's newsrooms and helped advance liberal causes like the Civil Rights Movement and cleaning up crooked government. They were the "Reagan Democrats" of pundits who turned right because of Clinton & Co.

He skewered people like Gore, Clinton, and particularly other lefty journalists because he perceived their liberalism was a pre-packaged, rareified product of being compartmentalized from the rest of American life. He was from a family of reporters, he marinated in the idealism of newspaper union halls, and he was a NEWSPAPERMAN, a "shoe-leather reporter", not a "media figure". He lived to pound the pavement, work to get the story, and be in sync with the rhythms of the newsroom. You can't say that about too many talking heads these days.

[happygrl]

You can't say that about too many talking heads these days.

You have written well.

I think that it was that aspect of his life (shoe leather on the ground) which enabled him to interpret so well the heart of what went wrong with Liberalism, the Democratic Party, and the beltway under Clinton. He talked (or wrote) himself out of liberalism into conservatism and took a lot of people with him.

(Still waiting for the comparison to E.B.White)