[The Great Satan]

Yes, it is.

[kcvl]

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 4, 2003; 10:48 AM


Michael Kelly, the Atlantic Monthly editor-at-large and Washington Post columnist who abandoned the safety of editorial offices to cover the war in Iraq, has been killed while traveling with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division.

Kelly, the first American journalist killed in the war, had also served as editor of the New Republic and National Journal. But his decision to join up with U.S. forces marked a return to his reporting roots, since he covered the first Persian Gulf War as a magazine freelancer and turned his observations into a book, "Martyrs' Day." While one Australian and two British journalists have been killed covering the war, Kelly's death is the first among the 600 correspondents participating in the Pentagon's embedding program.