Five years ago yesterday the great editor/columnist/reporter Michael Kelly became the first US journalist to die in Iraq. I wrote at the time,
This is a tragic day for anyone who loves political commentary. Michael Kelly, America’s greatest columnist, died in Iraq today. He was the first American and first embedded reporter killed in the war.
Its not very often that the passing of a person you have never met moves you deeply. I am truly saddened by his death. My heart goes out to his wife and two young sons.
Hats off the the Salem Evening News for a story on his family in today’s paper,
Five years later, Kelly family has good days and bad
By Steve Landwehr
Like the parent of any kids who have lost a parent, Kelly said she worries about how it will affect hers. But they’re doing well in school and are as well-adjusted as can be expected, she said.
It’s sometimes hard to believe five years have gone by, she said, and sobering to consider that Jack is now more than twice as old as he was at the time of his father’s death.
Kelly has a lot of good days, she said, and they’re no different from anyone else’s good days — the kids get off to school on time and without any arguments and the rest of the day proceeds smoothly.
“I’m not a very unhappy person,” she said.
She struggles to describe the feelings that will never go away, but shares a friend’s outlook.
“She’s also a widow, and she recently remarried,” Kelly said. “She loves her husband, but she still mourns the future she’ll never have.”
Five years ago I also posted tributes from his colleagues which were incredibly moving then and remain so today. Here they are,
Below are remembrances from his colleagues…
Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal: The death of Michael Kelly is a sin against the order of the world. He was a young man on his way to becoming a great man. He was going to be one of the great editors of his time, and at the age of 46 he was already one of its great journalists. And one’s first thought about him, after saying the obvious–that he wrote like a dream, that he was a great reporter with great eyes, that he was a keen judge of what is news and what should be news–is this. He was an independent man. He had an indignant independence that was beauty to behold. He knew what he thought and why, and he announced it in his columns and essays with wit and anger.
Jonah Goldberg: Howard Kurtz’ obit says Kelly was a conservative and I suppose that’s right. But I never really saw him as one. Rather, I always perceived him as an old style blue collar Democrat whose B.S. detector pushed him to the right on specific issues. Whatever, his columns were tough as nails, but he always explained where he was coming from. In that I’ve always seen him as a role model — there’s nothing wrong with hitting the other guy hard as long as you provide a rationale for doing so and are willing to take your lumps in return. But Kelly was also an intellectually gifted man with a profound sense of decency, or at least that’s the impression I always got from his work.
Byron York, National Review: A Courageous Man: He had the courage to speak his mind even when it might cost him his job and the approval of his less independent-minded colleagues. Some writers would do anything rather than say something that would risk the disapproval of the right people. Kelly wasn’t one of them.
Jonathan Chiatt, United Press International: Appreciation: Remembering Michael Kelly: If you knew Michael Kelly only through his columns, you either loved him or hated him, probably depending upon your political persuasion. My politics were quite different from his, and if I had known him only as a reader I probably would have hated him. But I also knew Mike as an editor and as a person, and because of that I loved him.
James Taranto, OpinionJournal.com, A Journalist and a Hero: Kelly’s greatest journalistic achievement was to transform The Atlantic Monthly, of which he became editor in 1999, from an insomnia cure into a must-read. He stepped down as editor last fall. A statement from the magazine quotes managing editor Cullen Murphy: “Mike Kelly was a loyal and warm friend, a passionate and courageous advocate, an extraordinary reporter and editor, and above all a profoundly good and generous man. You didn’t need to know Mike for long to understand that you could stake your life on all of those qualities.” We met Kelly only once–we had a long chat with him at an Atlantic cocktail party in New York a couple of years ago–and can attest that Murphy is right.
Murphy continues: “He saw his profession not as a game but as a public service. I want Mike’s boys Tom and Jack to know that their Dad was a hero. His loss is devastating to all of us.” May he rest in peace.
See what made Michael Kelly so great, his columns dating back to 1999.