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."
Rating:
Summary: Well worth reading
Review: Michael Kelly, Things Worth Fighting For: Collected Writings, is a compilation of works written by Kelly over a period of about fifteen years. I had not read any of his columns or essays before reading this book and, indeed, barely paid much attention to the announcement of his death covering the Iraq War as an embedded journalist. That was to my own detriment, as I think, after having devoured these essays, I would have enjoyed following his witty, sometimes graphic, occasionally grim, and always insightful writing. The book is divided into sections generally covering periods such as the Clinton Administration, the Gulf War, the Palestine/Israel peace accords, the War on Terror and the Iraq War. There are also pieces on culture and society (including some short biographical works on Jesse Jackson and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley Jr.), and even some emails he sent to his family while in Iraq. Publication date and original source for each essay and column are at the end of the book - I would rather that that information been included in the headings for each. There are enough of his writings collected in the book to get a sense of the man and even some hints of the evolution of his thoughts and attitudes. His writing style is fluid and succinct. I could just barely stop reading the book when it was time to go to sleep each night. The most poignant, and graphic, of his writings included in this book are those covering the Gulf War. He started it having never seen the human and material costs of war first-hand and ended it believing that there truly are things worth fighting, and dying, for. Kelly describes the torture and murder that the Iraqi regime visited on Kuwaiti civilians sparingly but with enough detail that you are left wondering how such evil could have been allowed to survive the war without proper punishment. When reading his coverage of the Iraq War it is apparent that his experiences during the Gulf War informed his reporting and his attitudes. Kelly's writings about the Clinton Administration are interesting for the analysis of Bill Clinton the man. Clinton's childhood environment explains, though it doesn't excuse, some of his behavior. His mother's outlook, "taught, ultimately, that people are not to be judged by their actions, but are endlessly free to reinvent themselves....Since "what-ifs" do not exist,, one needn't worry that the promise of the moment cannot be met in the future....[and] Since the "irrelevant" past does not really exist either, the actions of the moment cease to exist once the moment becomes the past, and cannot be held against one later." As with his war reporting, the selections included in the book give a sense of the change his viewpoint underwent during Clinton's terms in office - going from a somewhat neutral analytical tone to weariness from, what he felt was, the incessant lying and prevarication of a man who should be impeached. This collection is particularly interesting to me because I lived through all of the events covered - as a spectator perhaps, but lived through it nonetheless. In some sense, Kelly helped me to look back and articulate what it was I felt during Bill Clinton's terms as President of the United States, the Persian Gulf War, and September 11th. This book is well worth the time spent reading it. I didn't always agree with his assessments, but I found much to think about. And it is a fitting memorial for a journalist that I wish I had known during his lifetime.
Rating:
Summary: Quite Possibly the Best Writer I Have Ever Read
Review: The horrible thing about reading this book is that if you were a fan of Michael Kelly before his death, you will start missing his work again all over. If you come to this book unfamiliar with his writing, you will curse yourself for having missed him during his lifetime. He is that good of a writer - witty, inquisative, insightful and with an ever changing voice that perfectly fits the mood of the piece. It is hard to open a single page of this book and not find prose worthy of being placed on the back cover. His writing is that phenomenal.
The book is a compilation of many of his earlier writings from throughout his career. There are many of his Washington Post columns, and longer pieces that he wrote for the New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, and various other publications. The book is divided into several distinctive parts, each filled with both short and long essays. "Visions of America" gives us Kelly's observations on the country. "The Game" concentrates chiefly on politics in the US. "The Age of Clinton" is self explanitory. "The Gulf War" includes his essays from the First Gulf War and the aftermath of the reopening of Kuwait and the Kurdish uprising in Iraq. "Front Lines" includes a lot about Bosnia from the early `90s. In the "Last War" Kelly concentrates on terrorism and the 9/11 fall out. And the book concludes with "Family Wealth" which you may correctly surmise is about the family.
The book is moderate in tone, although the shorter columns from the Washington Post are more conservative in nature. The longer issues are very well balanced and very fair, and I think that was a true trademark of his reporting - the constant vigilance to be even handed in his reporting. He also searches for, finds and explains the motives of his subjects better than almost anyone else I have ever read.
Regardless of your political leanings, you should read this book if only to take advantage of reading some of the best writing you will ever come across. And if you haven't read Kelly before, you may not forgive yourself for depriving yourself until now.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Pillars of American Journalism
Review: The review from the "Reader from LA" had so many typos that one suspects it was written by Barbra Streisand and should be treated accordingly, but as someone who was inspired by Michael Kelly to go to Afghanistan, I would like to point out that Saddam Hussein was a genocidal maniac and if it was not right to overthrow him, it was not right to overthrow anyone. More than 300,000 graves have been found so far, many of them infants and children. If America doesn't care, no one will care. Michael Kelly was always a liberal, but one with his feet on the ground which is why he wrote so powerfully against the Clintons, Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson and every other person who has confused personal welfare with public welfare. What made Michael Kelly's work so lasting is that he wasn't standing up for privilege or power. He shared the liberal instinct, but was far too intelligent to fall for empty rhetoric. One's feeling toward Michael Kelly is a bellwether of one's own intelligence, character and empathy. His loss will be deeply felt. This book collects most of his most important pieces and what is striking is how almost nothing is dated. Although many of his subjects are now history, the principles Kelly stood for and the style of his writing make these pieces as alive and timely as if he wrote them today. If there is any criticism of this book, it is that it is not a "collected works," but maybe we'll have that one day, too.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Pillars of American Journalism
Review: The review from the "Reader from LA" had so many typos that one suspects it was written by Barbra Streisand and should be treated accordingly, but as someone who was inspired by Michael Kelly to go to Afghanistan, I would like to point out that Saddam Hussein was a genocidal maniac and if it was not right to overthrow him, it was not right to overthrow anyone. More than 300,000 graves have been found so far, many of them infants and children. If America doesn't care, no one will care. Michael Kelly was always a liberal, but one with his feet on the ground which is why he wrote so powerfully against the Clintons, Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson and every other person who has confused personal welfare with public welfare. What made Michael Kelly's work so lasting is that he wasn't standing up for privilege or power. He shared the liberal instinct, but was far too intelligent to fall for empty rhetoric. One's feeling toward Michael Kelly is a bellwether of one's own intelligence, character and empathy. His loss will be deeply felt. This book collects most of his most important pieces and what is striking is how almost nothing is dated. Although many of his subjects are now history, the principles Kelly stood for and the style of his writing make these pieces as alive and timely as if he wrote them today. If there is any criticism of this book, it is that it is not a "collected works," but maybe we'll have that one day, too.
Rating: 
Summary: It be funny if it weren't so sad
Review: The state of the world is in no small part due to the simplsistic jingoistic ramblings that Kelly epitimized. The next time you see something about how terrible things in Iraq are, remember that Kelly was cheering the parade and deliberately urging ignorance over rational thought as we debated the wisdom of war. I'd say more, but I don't like condemning the dead all that much, and unfortunately, there will be a lot of ealy graves because Americans took Kelly's advice.
Rating: 
Summary: war correspondents
Review: There have been a number of books published recently by those who cover our wars. This is another one. The problem I have with this book and this genre is that while the individuals always come across as brave, insightful, full of integrity, and hard-nosed, we have to face the reality of American journalism, which is almost none of those things. How is this? How do we go from the heroism of reporters acting out an almost mythological role to the bland compliance of the U.S. news media?
Rating:
Summary: A Treasure
Review: This is a remarkable book. Having Michael Kelly?s essays and columns together in a single volume is a treasure. Reading them together, seeing themes developed in a way that was not visible when the essays came out individually, gives them an extraordinary cumulative power. There are essays in this volume that are worth the entire book, including Kelly?s two-page essay on the degeneration of political protest (?Imitation Activism?), the classic ?Nice Column,? essays about the Middle East (?Arafat Bombs on Opening Night?), and an essay written on September 11, 2001 (?When Innocents Are the Enemy?) that cannot be read often enough. LA Reader?s comment below is unfortunate, not only for its personal denigration and political criticism in the guise of reviewing a book, but because of its intended effect ? to persuade readers to skip a literary work of enduring value that belongs in every serious library.
Rating:
Summary: A Treasure
Review: This is a remarkable book. Having Michael Kelly's essays and columns together in a single volume is a treasure. Reading them together, seeing themes developed in a way that was not visible when the essays came out individually, gives them an extraordinary cumulative power. There are essays in this volume that are worth the entire book, including Kelly's two-page essay on the degeneration of political protest ("Imitation Activism"), the classic "Nice Column," essays about the Middle East ("Arafat Bombs on Opening Night"), and an essay written on September 11, 2001 ("When Innocents Are the Enemy") that cannot be read often enough. LA Reader's comment below is unfortunate, not only for its personal denigration and political criticism in the guise of reviewing a book, but because of its intended effect - to persuade readers to skip a literary work of enduring value that belongs in every serious library.
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