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Friday, April 04, 2003
Noonan on Kelly
Okay. We're all sad about Michael Kelly's untimely death...but come on.....:
I knew him as most people did, through what he wrote. I'd met him and admired him easily, but the Michael I read I loved. And so today, without a particular right to, I feel heartbroken. When the news broke, Mencken biographer Terry Teachout expressed with concision what I felt and had not been able to articulate: "This is horrible, horrible news--[Michael] had evolved into a great force for journalistic good, not just as regards this war but in general, and his death will leave a black hole in the sky."
"I was in complete shock. I just sobbed." That's how a close friend of Kelly's described getting the news, by phone. She didn't want me to use her name. She is a former worker in the network-news vineyards and a close friend of Kelly's who'd known him for 15 years, and she wanted to make sure he'd be spoken of in a way that was true. I asked her for her sense of Kelly's special place in journalism, and her answer conflated the personal with the professional. Understandable. All that he was as a professional came from who he was as a person, as an intellect and a personality and a soul.
She said, "He was brave. And he was a warrior. He would take on anything if he believed it was right."
You mean he was willing to pay a price for where he stood? I asked.
"Yes. He refused to be part of the conventional wisdom. He was never part of the pack." She paused. "That's what drove people crazy, that they couldn't classify him. But he was willing not to be liked."
Good thing, as a life of honesty is a life of controversy, and Kelly seemed constitutionally an honest man.
[snip]
Kelly went to The New Republic, where he was no doubt hired for his independence and brilliance and then rather obviously canned for his independence and brilliance, in that case for showing disgust with Bill Clinton and Al Gore. He landed at National Journal and got a weekly column at the Washington Post.
He summed up his final judgment on Bill Clinton in a column a few years later, when he responded to another journalist's assertion that Bill Clinton was "unique." Yes, said Kelly. "What comes across as the most important source of Clinton's uniqueness as president is the nearly unbelievable degree of his essential unfitness to be president -- his profound immaturity, his pathological selfishness, his cynicism, above all his relentless corruption."
Oh, did I mention that she thinks Kelly should be buried at Arlington?
He remains will come home now soon enough, and I hope what comes home is met with an honor guard, for he has earned it, and a flag, for he loved his country, and a snapped salute, for that is one way to show respect. And maybe it would be good if this son of Washington--born there, educated there, drawn to its great industry, politics and the reporting of it--were to find his final rest nearby, among those who fought with distinction for America. Michael Kelly went at great peril to be with U.S. troops, and he fell among US troops, while trying to tell the story of U.S. troops. So perhaps his final rest should be with U.S. troops, in Arlington, where we put so many heroes.
I would like to give Peggy the benefit of the doubt since she tossed this one off in about four hours, but even if she had four weeks we would have seen the same finished product. The column has that certain Noonan-cy that we have come to both fear and mock. If you saw an insane person on the street waving a pair of scissors around, you would call the police. What do you do with a crazy woman with a word processor?
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