Breaking: Journalist Michael Kelly Killed at Baghdad Airport

ABC radio news | 4-4-03

[BartMan1]

ping

[Constantine]

How incredibly sad. Mr. Kelly was one of the columnists I looked forward to every day. He was a wonderful writer, a terrific conservative, and had a real wit. He will be sorely, sorely missed.

[IGOTMINE]

His was a sharp and fine pen. I shall miss his columns.

I heard Sam Donaldson's report. Michael was riding in a HUMVEE that went off the road outside Baghdad and into a canal. Both he and his driver were drowned. No telling why...maybe the driver fell asleep, maybe there was smoke.

Another good one gone. Damn.

[Jhensy]

Man, I am stunned, too. I lived in D.C. for 4 years, and he was the voice of sanity on the Washington Post op-ed page. Big, big loss. RIP.

[daviddennis]

To honour Michael Kelly, I would like to point out the best column he's ever written, a tone-perfect dissection of typical lefty public affairs programming.

That's one of the funniest columns I've ever read, on Free Republic or elsewhere.

Michael Kelly will be greatly missed :-(.

D

[AHerald]

God Rest his soul and comfort his family. He was an incredible writer. A real loss.

[Mark de New Brighton]

Horrible news. A tremendous voice stilled. Maybe not the same as Ernie Pyle, but close. Imagine if E.B. White had been killed in WWII - that's the magnitude here.

[RippleFire]

bump

[Servant of the Nine]

Just announced 5 minutes ago, journalist Michael Kelley embedded with US troops for the Atlantic Monthly Magazine was reported killed during the military action at Baghdad International airport.

The Washington Post Michael Kelly spells his name differently, Kelly, from the one listed above, Kelley. It would help if the report would have said for what organization he is reporting.

There was a misspelling in the name in the thread headder.

The Washington Post Michael Kelly is also the editor of the Atlantic. He is also the Michael Kelly that was embedded with the 3rd Mech. He is the one we lost.

So9

[conservababeJen]

I'm greatly saddened about Michael Kelly. This is a loss as great as Barbara Olsen. I read his columns regularly on Townhall.com :(

My prayers go out to his family.

[borkrules]

I subscribed to The Atlantic for one reason: Michael Kelley was named editor. From the time he took over the reins there, the magazine quickly establised itself as THE general interest magazine in America. Consistently interesting, varied, opinionated, and non-partisan (it features articles and reviews by authors as diverse as Christopher Hitchens, PJ O'Rourke, Jonathon Rauch, etc.).

I just received this month's issue, which features a cover story on the perfidy of the House of Saud and predicts their eventual fall from power.

But the magazine isn't another TNR or NR. It's more, including one month a long piece on Maine lobster fishing that was simply fascinating.

The success of The Atlantic is a real tribute to Mr. Kelley's skill and talent. His death, if true, is a tremendous blow, not just to "conservatives" but to the reading public at large.

Someone is going to have HUGE shoes to try and fill.

[oyez]

Kelly can't be replaced. Hes was a profit of reason. Mike is the kind of guy we depend on in time like these. May God comfort his friends and relatives.

[KineticKitty]

"Won't journalists' families be spared learning of their tragedy the way the soldier's are?"

I was thinking the same thing. If this just happened, shame on them for reporting this, I would hate to hear of my husbands death over there in that fashion.

If this did just happen, It would just go to show their "how do you feel" microphone in your face, who cares about anyone's feelings as long as it is for a good story attitude isn't reserved just for people outside the "news community".

How come I keep getting images of sharks feeding on their own? I hope the family was notified before this was announced.

[southernnorthcarolina]

Kelly was a favorite of mine. He seemed to make something of a specialty of being the "house conservative" for liberal publications -- the "TRB" column in the New Republic, articles for the New Yorker and Esquire, stints with the Boston Globe and the New York Times, and of course his column for the Washington Post, among others.

One of his all-time best was a Post column written November 13, 2002, in the immediate aftermath of the elections, titled "Wishful in Defeat." It ends this way (and I ping the Admin Moderator in case this excerpt is deemed too long, and in violation of the injunction, in which case this post can be yanked):

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the next 12 months the United States, under Bush, will either disarm or destroy the regime of Saddam Hussein. Congress, at Bush's direction, will pass the homeland security bill, a new (and popular) tax-cutting measure and health care legislation that will include prescription drug benefits for seniors. Liberal Democrats will complain.

A potential result is a Democratic disaster. One thing that has kept the electorate equally divided for a decade is the widely held belief that divided government is better government. A smart, competent, popular president, supported by a Congress headed by his party, achieving mainstream policy aims, has an excellent chance of convincing many voters that, actually, unified government is better -- unified under Republican rule.

Democrats will howl at the voters that they are not to believe any of this -- that the president is not competent, that his administration is not to be trusted, that Republican presidents and Republican policies are radical and dangerous and frightening and bad.

I suppose they will continue to believe this, and continue to say it, in voices growing ever more shrill and ever more loud, yet, oddly, ever more distant and faint.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You gotta love that last paragraph.

[floriduh voter]

Fox has Rick Leventhal and Greg Kelly.

They are both okay and I think RL is a bit too informative but he's a trooper. I think he got in trouble for mentioning they were stuck in the mud this a.m. He omitted that in his next report and acted like he'd been admonished by somebody.

[BlueCat]

I subscribed to The Atlantic for one reason: Michael Kelley was named editor.

Same here. I'm sick about this.

[The Great Satan]

ABC News just reported Kelly drowned after the Humvee he was in overturned in a canal. Very sad -- a terrific columnist.

[edwin hubble]

He was brilliant and courageous.

He wrote for the Washington Post, but was fierce in his attacks on the Clintons and his strong in his support of Bush.

[BibChr]

Dang, I'm really sorry to hear that. He was so whimsical on Hugh Hewitt's show about his previous experience in Iraq, this was a light thing to him. I'm betting Hewitt will be deeply saddened.

Dan

[Nonstatist]

Oh my God. What a tragedy.