Grim Reader, Aug.13, 2010: Ted Stevens, David L. Wolper and Patricia Neal
by Michael Schaffer
AUGUST 13, 2010 TAGS:
American politics may be getting nastier, but when it comes to remembering political titans, we remain a nation of softies. Earlier this year, when Pennsylvania pork-barrel champ John Murtha died, every reference to the dubious federal largesse the Democrat commandeered seemed to be balanced out by assertions about the bravery it took for the Vietnam vet to oppose the Iraq war. Earlier this summer, when West Virginia earmark king Robert Byrd died, questions about his impact on the national treasury played second fiddle to reflections on his voyage from KKK member to Obama enthusiast. So it’s no surprise that, when former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens died in a plane crash, his obituarists went looking for happy narratives to counter the more familiar tale of the insider who championed the infamous “bridge to nowhere.”
In Stevens’ case, the narrative involves his service to Alaska, which had only been in the union for nine years by the time the Harvard-trained lawyer began his 40-year stint as its senator. Stevens “dominated Alaska’s transformation from wild frontier to modern state,” writes Kathleen Hennessy of Tribune Media’s Washington Bureau. His story, Politico notes, was “in many ways inseparable from the 51-year history of Alaskan statehood.” Up in the 49th State — where all the major obits note he was voted “Alaskan of the Century” — the Anchorage Daily News calls him “a major architect of the Alaska that emerged from its territorial history.”
Unfortunately for Stevens, he was never quite charming enough to qualify as a charming rogue, and the obits don’t have nearly the level of sentimental schmaltz as those of his porky colleagues. Stevens once described himself as a “mean, miserable SOB,” a phrase that pops up around the Obitosphere and serves as Politico’s lede. “A brusque political patron,” according to Tribune, he “famously wore a scowl,” writes the Washington Post. Nearly everyone mentions the survey that ranked Stevens’ as Capitol Hill’s hottest temper.
They’re less sure about how to play the ethics charges that helped end his career: Stevens was defeated a month after his conviction on failing to disclose significant gifts; months later, the conviction was thrown out due to prosecutorial misconduct. Most of the obits just stick to the facts and don’t characterize Stevens as greasy. The Los Angeles Times, though, refers to its own 2003 “investigation detailing how Stevens had amassed personal wealth by investing with businessmen he helped in Washington.” One Washington Post blogger goes beyond the specifics to question the political community’s habit of praising legislators for their attention to constituents — a task that’s a job description rather than an indication of someone’s values. “The euphemistic, he-brought-so-much-to-Alaska line implicitly valorizes his overattention to parochial concerns, when such behavior is, at best, morally neutral,” declares Stephen Stromberg.
There’s a little bit of the same tension in the coverage of another D.C. deal-making legend, former Rep. Dan Rostenkowski. But there’s a difference: Rostenskowski was bounced from power and sent to jail. In a quote unearthed by his hometown Chicago Tribune, he seemed to understand how he’d be viewed even before his death set the obits rolling: “With all the legislation that I passed, with all the history that I’ve written with respect to the economics of the country, they’re always going to say there’s a felon named Danny Rostenkowski.” It’s true: Though the coverage includes the standard array of Capitol Hill anecdotes — the Post Mortem blog has a great one about his swiping the wheels from the hearing-room chair belonging to a legislative foe — the descriptions of his magisterial “cajoling, arm-twisting and posturing,” in the New York Times’ words, are buried under details of his ethics crimes. The Obitosphere prefers that rogues don’t get caught.
Historian Tony Judt was “the foremost chronicler of post-war Europe,” announces the Telegraph, which predicts that “years from now, people will turn for pleasure to Tony Judt’s histories of France and Europe – much as, today, we still read Macaulay’s History of England.” In the United States — where Judt moved in 1987 — he’s better remembered as “one of the most controversial public intellectuals,” in the Washington Post’s words, thanks to his wide-ranging essays in the New York Review of Books. Unfortunately, the only controversies cited in major American outlets involve Judt’s sharp criticisms of Israel. Both the Washington Post and the New York Times cite the same exact slam against Judt by the strongly pro-Israel magazine he used to write for, The New Republic. The United Kingdom’s Guardian does the best job balancing his academic work and his essays, finding a great old Judt quote about his disillusionment with the French academic left, which he accused of tolerating “a radical disjunction between the uninteresting evidence of your own eyes and ears and the incontrovertible conclusions to be derived from first principles.”
David L. Wolper is remembered as “one of the true pioneers of TV miniseries and documentaries,” in the words of Deadline.com. Best known for making Roots, his CV also included The Thorn Birds, Jacques Cousteau documentaries, and the opening ceremonies for 1984’s Los Angeles Olympic games. Fun tidbit from the Los Angeles Times: He purchased the rights to Roots before Alex Haley even finished the book. Props to the Washington Post’s Adam Bernstein, though, for noting that Wolper’s career also included lightweight sitcoms like Welcome Back, Kotter as well as “intensely forgettable fare” including a TV series based on Casablanca.
Also in arts, actress Patricia Neal is remembered as someone who “could have been the American [Jeanne] Moreau, if Hollywood didn’t fear smart, unconventionally alluring actresses who defy pigeonholing,” in the Boston Globe’s words. The New York Times stresses “a life that alternated almost surreally between triumph and tragedy” — a child who died, a series of debilitating health setbacks. … Jack Parnell was a top bandleader in 1950s Britain, but his Associated Press obit, among others, leads with something less musically exalted: Parnell was the musical conductor for The Muppet Show. … And photographer Lee Lockwood is described in his New York Times obituary as “an American photojournalist who had rare opportunities to capture political, military and civilian life in Communist countries.” Lockwood got an unusual glimpse of Cuba during the 1960s, and while there — note to smart foreign reporters — stopped at the North Vietnamese embassy to get a visa. His shot of an American POW bowing to his jailers in Hanoi was widely reprinted; disappointingly, the obit isn’t accompanied by a slideshow.
A pair of Western-based left-wing radicals also share obit space this week. German Fritz Teufel was “a red-bearded prankster whose rabble-rousing stunts made him one of the most famous members of Germany’s leftist student movement in the 1960s,” says the Washington Post. Teufel first gained stateside fame as a member of a group busted for plotting to assassinate then-veep Hubert Humphrey; it later turned out their weapon of choice was pudding. Teufel eventually broke with the left and became a baker. … Marilyn Buck, a member of the Weather Underground, made no such break. “Often described in the news media as the Black Liberation Army’s only white member,” according to the New York Times, she skipped out on a 1970s prison furlough and took part in a deadly 1981 armored-car heist. Arrested in 1985, she spent decades in prison. Both Buck’s and Teufel’s obits are good on the details of their political fights, but Grim Reader would have loved some more background on why these children of the middle class became violent dissidents.
In sports, everyone remembers David Dixon, a founder of the New Orleans Saints who helped drive construction of the team’s ill-fated home, the Louisiana Superdome. The New York Times uses the obit to offer a smoke-filled-room account of the team’s founding — essentially, a PR guy tied to Dixon and powerhouse U.S. Rep. Hale Boggs suggested a quid pro quo where the NFL gave New Orleans a team if Congress would grant the league an antitrust waiver. One question from Grim Reader: Where did Dixon get the money for this? The New Orleans Times-Picayune, in an otherwise dull beloved-civic-leader tribute, describes Dixon as “a French Quarter arts and antiques dealer.” How well can that pay? ... There’s less love out there for Antonio Pettigrew, referred to in a San Francisco Chronicle headline as a “disgraced sprinter.” He’d been stripped of a 2000 Olympic medal due to doping.
Finally, remember that fresh Chilean fruit you enjoyed last winter? Thank Jack Pandol. In a nice obit, the Los Angeles Times recounts how the California grower pioneered the import of foreign produce, spurring innovation on everything from jet transport to refrigerated shipping. The results? An “expansion of global trade [that] essentially defied Mother Nature and brought produce to consumers at any time of year.” The Fresno Bee notes that Pandol eventually was awarded Chile’s highest civilian honor.
Michael Schaffer’s Grim Reader appears Friday in Obit. He is the author of One Nation Under Dog, about culture and the American pet industry.
In Stevens’ case, the narrative involves his service to Alaska, which had only been in the union for nine years by the time the Harvard-trained lawyer began his 40-year stint as its senator. Stevens “dominated Alaska’s transformation from wild frontier to modern state,” writes Kathleen Hennessy of Tribune Media’s Washington Bureau. His story, Politico notes, was “in many ways inseparable from the 51-year history of Alaskan statehood.” Up in the 49th State — where all the major obits note he was voted “Alaskan of the Century” — the Anchorage Daily News calls him “a major architect of the Alaska that emerged from its territorial history.” Unfortunately for Stevens, he was never quite charming enough to qualify as a charming rogue, and the obits don’t have nearly the level of sentimental schmaltz as those of his porky colleagues. Stevens once described himself as a “mean, miserable SOB,” a phrase that pops up around the Obitosphere and serves as Politico’s lede. “A brusque political patron,” according to Tribune, he “famously wore a scowl,” writes the Washington Post. Nearly everyone mentions the survey that ranked Stevens’ as Capitol Hill’s hottest temper.
They’re less sure about how to play the ethics charges that helped end his career: Stevens was defeated a month after his conviction on failing to disclose significant gifts; months later, the conviction was thrown out due to prosecutorial misconduct. Most of the obits just stick to the facts and don’t characterize Stevens as greasy. The Los Angeles Times, though, refers to its own 2003 “investigation detailing how Stevens had amassed personal wealth by investing with businessmen he helped in Washington.” One Washington Post blogger goes beyond the specifics to question the political community’s habit of praising legislators for their attention to constituents — a task that’s a job description rather than an indication of someone’s values. “The euphemistic, he-brought-so-much-to-Alaska line implicitly valorizes his overattention to parochial concerns, when such behavior is, at best, morally neutral,” declares Stephen Stromberg.
There’s a little bit of the same tension in the coverage of another D.C. deal-making legend, former Rep. Dan Rostenkowski. But there’s a difference: Rostenskowski was bounced from power and sent to jail. In a quote unearthed by his hometown Chicago Tribune, he seemed to understand how he’d be viewed even before his death set the obits rolling: “With all the legislation that I passed, with all the history that I’ve written with respect to the economics of the country, they’re always going to say there’s a felon named Danny Rostenkowski.” It’s true: Though the coverage includes the standard array of Capitol Hill anecdotes — the Post Mortem blog has a great one about his swiping the wheels from the hearing-room chair belonging to a legislative foe — the descriptions of his magisterial “cajoling, arm-twisting and posturing,” in the New York Times’ words, are buried under details of his ethics crimes. The Obitosphere prefers that rogues don’t get caught.
Historian Tony Judt was “the foremost chronicler of post-war Europe,” announces the Telegraph, which predicts that “years from now, people will turn for pleasure to Tony Judt’s histories of France and Europe – much as, today, we still read Macaulay’s History of England.” In the United States — where Judt moved in 1987 — he’s better remembered as “one of the most controversial public intellectuals,” in the Washington Post’s words, thanks to his wide-ranging essays in the New York Review of Books. Unfortunately, the only controversies cited in major American outlets involve Judt’s sharp criticisms of Israel. Both the Washington Post and the New York Times cite the same exact slam against Judt by the strongly pro-Israel magazine he used to write for, The New Republic. The United Kingdom’s Guardian does the best job balancing his academic work and his essays, finding a great old Judt quote about his disillusionment with the French academic left, which he accused of tolerating “a radical disjunction between the uninteresting evidence of your own eyes and ears and the incontrovertible conclusions to be derived from first principles.”
David L. Wolper is remembered as “one of the true pioneers of TV miniseries and documentaries,” in the words of Deadline.com. Best known for making Roots, his CV also included The Thorn Birds, Jacques Cousteau documentaries, and the opening ceremonies for 1984’s Los Angeles Olympic games. Fun tidbit from the Los Angeles Times: He purchased the rights to Roots before Alex Haley even finished the book. Props to the Washington Post’s Adam Bernstein, though, for noting that Wolper’s career also included lightweight sitcoms like Welcome Back, Kotter as well as “intensely forgettable fare” including a TV series based on Casablanca.
Also in arts, actress Patricia Neal is remembered as someone who “could have been the American [Jeanne] Moreau, if Hollywood didn’t fear smart, unconventionally alluring actresses who defy pigeonholing,” in the Boston Globe’s words. The New York Times stresses “a life that alternated almost surreally between triumph and tragedy” — a child who died, a series of debilitating health setbacks. … Jack Parnell was a top bandleader in 1950s Britain, but his Associated Press obit, among others, leads with something less musically exalted: Parnell was the musical conductor for The Muppet Show. … And photographer Lee Lockwood is described in his New York Times obituary as “an American photojournalist who had rare opportunities to capture political, military and civilian life in Communist countries.” Lockwood got an unusual glimpse of Cuba during the 1960s, and while there — note to smart foreign reporters — stopped at the North Vietnamese embassy to get a visa. His shot of an American POW bowing to his jailers in Hanoi was widely reprinted; disappointingly, the obit isn’t accompanied by a slideshow. A pair of Western-based left-wing radicals also share obit space this week. German Fritz Teufel was “a red-bearded prankster whose rabble-rousing stunts made him one of the most famous members of Germany’s leftist student movement in the 1960s,” says the Washington Post. Teufel first gained stateside fame as a member of a group busted for plotting to assassinate then-veep Hubert Humphrey; it later turned out their weapon of choice was pudding. Teufel eventually broke with the left and became a baker. … Marilyn Buck, a member of the Weather Underground, made no such break. “Often described in the news media as the Black Liberation Army’s only white member,” according to the New York Times, she skipped out on a 1970s prison furlough and took part in a deadly 1981 armored-car heist. Arrested in 1985, she spent decades in prison. Both Buck’s and Teufel’s obits are good on the details of their political fights, but Grim Reader would have loved some more background on why these children of the middle class became violent dissidents.
In sports, everyone remembers David Dixon, a founder of the New Orleans Saints who helped drive construction of the team’s ill-fated home, the Louisiana Superdome. The New York Times uses the obit to offer a smoke-filled-room account of the team’s founding — essentially, a PR guy tied to Dixon and powerhouse U.S. Rep. Hale Boggs suggested a quid pro quo where the NFL gave New Orleans a team if Congress would grant the league an antitrust waiver. One question from Grim Reader: Where did Dixon get the money for this? The New Orleans Times-Picayune, in an otherwise dull beloved-civic-leader tribute, describes Dixon as “a French Quarter arts and antiques dealer.” How well can that pay? ... There’s less love out there for Antonio Pettigrew, referred to in a San Francisco Chronicle headline as a “disgraced sprinter.” He’d been stripped of a 2000 Olympic medal due to doping.
Finally, remember that fresh Chilean fruit you enjoyed last winter? Thank Jack Pandol. In a nice obit, the Los Angeles Times recounts how the California grower pioneered the import of foreign produce, spurring innovation on everything from jet transport to refrigerated shipping. The results? An “expansion of global trade [that] essentially defied Mother Nature and brought produce to consumers at any time of year.” The Fresno Bee notes that Pandol eventually was awarded Chile’s highest civilian honor.
Michael Schaffer’s Grim Reader appears Friday in Obit. He is the author of One Nation Under Dog, about culture and the American pet industry.
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