Rating: 
Summary: One of the Pillars of American Journalism
Review: After looking forward to his regular writings as published in the Washington Post for a number of years, Michael Kelly's death had a personal impact that surprised me. I took his material for granted until it no longer appeared. He was a great journalist. I am so happy that his writings have been collected for me to re-read as many times as I like. As a student of journalism, veteran and a mother now living and working in Washington DC, so much of his material hits home. He is a great writer whose prose is enjoyable and worth reading even when you might disagree on the issue. This is a guy who spared no one his critical eye and sharp wit. What a loss. What a terrific volume of work.
Rating:
Summary: I miss this guy
Review: After looking forward to his regular writings as published in the Washington Post for a number of years, Michael Kelly's death had a personal impact that surprised me. I took his material for granted until it no longer appeared. He was a great journalist. I am so happy that his writings have been collected for me to re-read as many times as I like. As a student of journalism, veteran and a mother now living and working in Washington DC, so much of his material hits home. He is a great writer whose prose is enjoyable and worth reading even when you might disagree on the issue. This is a guy who spared no one his critical eye and sharp wit. What a loss. What a terrific volume of work.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Journalist-A Profound Loss !
Review: I have been a fan of Michael Kelly since I first discovered him in the pages of the New Republic back in the early nineties. He was that rarest of pundit/journalists. He was a man profoundly interested in truth and profoundly disgusted by modern ?spin.? Although a moderate liberal by birthright and inclination, Kelly found himself moving further and further from the reservation as the Clinton years proceeded. Kelly eventually was fired as editor of the New Republic for being too harsh on the Clinton administration. He then found his way to a regular syndicated column in the Washington Post and a job as editor in chief of the Atlantic, which he turned around completely. He became an embedded reporter during the Iraq war and as most know was tragically killed when his jeep came under fire and crashed on the way to Bagdhad. He was forty seven and left a wife and two young sons. We will never read the book he would have written about the war. I have no doubt it would have given us the real story, unvarnished and without an agenda. Because that?s what Kelly was about. His loss is not just a tragedy for his family, it is a national tragedy because a vital voice has been lost at a crucial time in American history. A reading of this brilliant collection of Kelly?s writings will attest to just how great the loss is. This book is a collection of Mike?s writings from 1990 through his death in 2003. The book is organized, not chronologically but by section. There is a section on ?Visions of America? in which Kelly?s columns and articles on American culture in the nineties is collected. These writings display the wit and satire for which he was well known. In sections on politics and the ?Age of Clinton? Kelly skewers the emptiness of ?spin? politics, when elections become nothing more than winning a game and where image and perception are more important than substance. His more lengthy personality profiles are brilliant examples of the genre and reading his profiles of Jesse Jackson in middle age, Ross Perot, Louis Farrakhan, Hillary Clinton and many others will bring back memories of a time that seems long distant now. His descriptions of the results of Sadaam?s tyranny against Kuwait will churn the stomach more than a decade later. His account of the first Gulf War brings home the reality of modern combat brilliantly. He also wrote bemusedly, in a section on family, about the world of his toddler and pre-school sons who he obviously loved dearly. It is in his post 9/11/01 writings, however, that Mike really found his voice. As the stark reality of the struggle we face was brought home, Kelly remembered, less than fondly, the profound emptiness of the Clinton age, and looked forward to a time of newly found resolve. I am sure he would be horrified at the breakdown of the national consensus, along party lines. As the argument began for action against Iraq, Kelly?s most eloquent essay, ?Immorality on the March?, demonstrates the profound immorality of the protesters who would doom the Iraqi people and the World to a permanent Hussein tyranny. In ?Who Would Choose Tyranny? he reveals the absurdity of the argument that Iraqi?s would choose the jackboot of Sadaam to liberation by America. The final section has some columns Mike filed during the early days of the war and personal E-Mails to his family and friends sent from Kuwait just before he left to meet his destiny with the Third Infantry Division. Even in these simple E-Mails, Mike?s profound skill with words is obvious. I know if Michael Kelly were alive today, no journalist would be better situated to write on the war?s justification and in eloquent support of the larger war on terror. No one would be better able to ridicule the fools on the left, the Michael Moore?s who spout absurdities and hurt our morale and resolve. Most importantly, no one would better shame the politicians and pundits who condemn the Bush administration without offering alternatives, who place electoral expediency over the national interest. Mike fought this his whole career. He would not refrain from criticism where such criticism is warranted but he would be believable, because he would place it in the context of the larger events that shape the direction of the world. No one did it better than him. Please buy this book, not only as a way of supporting Michael Kelly?s young family but because it represents the final legacy of a career cut tragically short. I am no fan of Maureen Dowd but she is absolutely correct in this assessment of Michael Kelly ?Michael died for two things he believed in: journalism and ridding the world of jackboots.? It will be small comfort to his beloved wife, children and parents but it may be of some consolation to fans of his writing.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Journalist-A Profound Loss !
Review: I have been a fan of Michael Kelly since I first discovered him in the pages of the New Republic back in the early nineties. He was that rarest of pundit/journalists. He was a man profoundly interested in truth and profoundly disgusted by modern "spin." Although a moderate liberal by birthright and inclination, Kelly found himself moving further and further from the reservation as the Clinton years proceeded. Kelly eventually was fired as editor of the New Republic for being too harsh on the Clinton administration. He then found his way to a regular syndicated column in the Washington Post and a job as editor in chief of the Atlantic, which he turned around completely. He became an embedded reporter during the Iraq war and as most know was tragically killed when his jeep came under fire and crashed on the way to Bagdhad. He was forty seven and left a wife and two young sons. We will never read the book he would have written about the war. I have no doubt it would have given us the real story, unvarnished and without an agenda. Because that's what Kelly was about. His loss is not just a tragedy for his family, it is a national tragedy because a vital voice has been lost at a crucial time in American history. A reading of this brilliant collection of Kelly's writings will attest to just how great the loss is. This book is a collection of Mike's writings from 1990 through his death in 2003. The book is organized, not chronologically but by section. There is a section on "Visions of America" in which Kelly's columns and articles on American culture in the nineties is collected. These writings display the wit and satire for which he was well known. In sections on politics and the "Age of Clinton" Kelly skewers the emptiness of "spin" politics, when elections become nothing more than winning a game and where image and perception are more important than substance. His more lengthy personality profiles are brilliant examples of the genre and reading his profiles of Jesse Jackson in middle age, Ross Perot, Louis Farrakhan, Hillary Clinton and many others will bring back memories of a time that seems long distant now. His descriptions of the results of Sadaam's tyranny against Kuwait will churn the stomach more than a decade later. His account of the first Gulf War brings home the reality of modern combat brilliantly. He also wrote bemusedly, in a section on family, about the world of his toddler and pre-school sons who he obviously loved dearly. It is in his post 9/11/01 writings, however, that Mike really found his voice. As the stark reality of the struggle we face was brought home, Kelly remembered, less than fondly, the profound emptiness of the Clinton age, and looked forward to a time of newly found resolve. I am sure he would be horrified at the breakdown of the national consensus, along party lines. As the argument began for action against Iraq, Kelly's most eloquent essay, "Immorality on the March", demonstrates the profound immorality of the protesters who would doom the Iraqi people and the World to a permanent Hussein tyranny. In "Who Would Choose Tyranny" he reveals the absurdity of the argument that Iraqi's would choose the jackboot of Sadaam to liberation by America. The final section has some columns Mike filed during the early days of the war and personal E-Mails to his family and friends sent from Kuwait just before he left to meet his destiny with the Third Infantry Division. Even in these simple E-Mails, Mike's profound skill with words is obvious. I know if Michael Kelly were alive today, no journalist would be better situated to write on the war's justification and in eloquent support of the larger war on terror. No one would be better able to ridicule the fools on the left, the Michael Moore's who spout absurdities and hurt our morale and resolve. Most importantly, no one would better shame the politicians and pundits who condemn the Bush administration without offering alternatives, who place electoral expediency over the national interest. Mike fought this his whole career. He would not refrain from criticism where such criticism is warranted but he would be believable, because he would place it in the context of the larger events that shape the direction of the world. No one did it better than him. Please buy this book, not only as a way of supporting Michael Kelly's young family but because it represents the final legacy of a career cut tragically short. I am no fan of Maureen Dowd but she is absolutely correct in this assessment of Michael Kelly "Michael died for two things he believed in: journalism and ridding the world of jackboots." It will be small comfort to his beloved wife, children and parents but it may be of some consolation to fans of his writing.
Rating:
Summary: Reading should be a Prerequisite for Reviewing.
Review: In his written words and in his life, Michael Kelly was one of the most profoundly moral men I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. He was also considerably more eloquent in his defense of those against the war in Iraq than his critics have been of him. I quote from pg. 365 of "Things Worth Fighting For," the book which, unlike the uninformed reviewer in Turlock, California -- a town whose sole contribution to American culture over the years is a 34 year old movie, "American Graffitti" -- I actually read. On the subject of the marchers in Paris, protesting before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Kelly writes: "...doubtless hundreds of thousands of marchers -- and millions more who did not march --believe quite sincerely that theirs is a profoundly moral cause and this is really all that motivates them...in the words of Chirac, that "war is always the worst answer."' Would that some of the Bush-hating, anti-Iraq crowd could express themselves so succinctly, and understand the motivations of those who diasagree with them as well as Michael Kelly did. For Kelly's reasons as to why he believed the invasion of Iraq WAS the moral thing to do, simply read the next page of this wonderful collection of his best works.(pg. 366) And as this is Memorial Day weekend, recall that he died with the 3rd Army, on its way to liberating Baghdad, while the rest of us were safely in the U.S. You don't have to be a soldier to put your money -- or your personal safety -- where your beliefs are. Mike Kelly did that when he didn't have to go. To me, that is a lot more moral than being a draftee.
Rating:
Summary: A true journalist
Review: Michael Kelly embodied the very finest ideals of what a great journalist could and should be. A keen observer of world events and the human condition, a brilliant writer and artist with words, an objective reporter dedicated to the pursuit of truth...Kelly was all of these things. He was also apparently a heckuva friend to people who knew him; a decent, honest, likeable guy. All of these things shine through in his reports and essays. We grieved when we lost him in Iraq, and the grief is re-awakened when we realize afresh how profoundly his wisdom and reportage is missed now. A man of faith who dearly loved his family and his country, Michael Kelly was everything an aspiring journalist today should hope to be. May Kelly's legacy be one of inspiring a new generation that will restore integrity to journalism.
Rating:
Summary: A fitting memorial
Review: Michael Kelly spared no words, not even "fighting words," when he was writing with that righteous fervor about something he saw that was wrong. I so looked forward to Wednesdays when his column would run in the Washington Post, with a perspective that was fresh and articulate, and which skewered the "political correctness" and conventional wisdom which surround us. His book about the 1st US/Iraq war, Martyr's Day, of which there are excerpts here, is unbeatable journalism which does not really age with time. Michael supported the 2nd US/Iraq war, and in fact his life ended while he was there covering it. But another wonderful aspect of his writing was that eternity was implicit between the lines, and would peak out when he wrote about his family, or the vignettes he could capture so naturally and effectively. And for me, the eternal was also present even when he was very down to earth, for example writing about something like the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, because he would unhesitatingly remind us that there is right and wrong in this world of ours. His work well justifies publishing this collection.
Rating:
Summary: A fitting memorial
Review: Michael Kelly spared no words, not even "fighting words," when he was writing with that righteous fervor about something he saw that was wrong. I so looked forward to Wednesdays when his column would run in the Washington Post, with a perspective that was fresh and articulate, and which skewered the "political correctness" and conventional wisdom which surround us. His book about the 1st US/Iraq war, Martyr's Day, of which there are excerpts here, is unbeatable journalism which does not really age with time. Michael supported the 2nd US/Iraq war, and in fact his life ended while he was there covering it. But another wonderful aspect of his writing was that eternity was implicit between the lines, and would peak out when he wrote about his family, or the vignettes he could capture so naturally and effectively. And for me, the eternal was also present even when he was very down to earth, for example writing about something like the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, because he would unhesitatingly remind us that there is right and wrong in this world of ours. His work well justifies publishing this collection.
Rating:
Summary: A giant in journalism
Review: Michael Kelly was a true journalist, a term term that had become so bastardized by the modern media as to be unrecognizable. But Kelly lived what he wrote about and had the ability to convey war and politics with devastating truth and piercing accuracy. He was just as brilliant when describing a horrifying war scene as he was fileting the likes of scoundrels such as Bill Clinton or Ted Kennedy. "Things Worth Fighting for" is poignant not only for the words inside, but the awful reminder of what was lost a year ago.
Rating:
Summary: What A Terrible Loss
Review: Michael Kelly was killed in Iraq in 2003, and after you read this wonderful collection of his essays you will understand what a terrible loss that was to American journalism. He rose through the ranks of the establishment press but he never lost his inner core of tough working-class Irish-Catholic values. This made it possible for him to ruthlessly bust phonies and hacks in the age of Clinton, and gave his work an irrefutable moral clarity after 9/11. As editor he revitalized "The Atlantic" into a fascinating, readable magazine. Plus, he seems to have been an incontestably decent, lovable guy. So when someone like Maureen Dowd (who has a favorable quote on the back cover of the book jacket) read some of his opinions that I'm sure she detested, she couldn't gainsay his integrity. Here are his brutally candid portraits of Ted Kennedy and Jesse Jackson, which no doubt startled and disturbed the rest of the usually somnolent Washington press. (You won't soon forget Kelly's account of Jackson's thoughtless cruelty to a chubby little kid.) Kelly was a lonely voice in the mainstream media who actually called for the impeachment of President Clinton, and in searing, Mencken-esque prose he describes his reasons. Here also are his reports from the war zones of the Balkans and Kuwait and Iraq. Kelly not only clearly depicts the ravages of war but the horrors of dictatorship. That Kuwait was "raped" by Saddam's military can't be disputed after reading Kelly's reporting. In a time when someone like Michael Moore is lionized as a hero, it helps to remember another, honest reporter who saw the world clearly, and put his life on the line about "things worth fighting for."
|
