A brief eulogy for Michael Kelly, the first US journalist killed in the war on Iraq.
Michael Kelly held the type of neoconservative political world view I loathe. He was frequently caustic when writing about political matters, leading to his 1999 dismissal from The New Republic. I thought he was wrong about any number of things, not the least of which was the Iraq war itself.
He was, however, one heckuva writer, and his editorial work on The Atlantic Monthly garnered numerous awards. In short, Kelly was extraordinarily good at what he did. Agree or disagree, you could never plausibly argue that his stuff wasn’t well-written. As one might expect, my favorite columns of his were apolitical: We Americans are some kind of fat, Life goes on and life is good, A color-blind Christmas, A non-judgemental Yale?, The greediest bunch of no-talent morons ever, and It’s time to answer my email.
Michael Kelly, RIP.