More Positive Article on Jack's Life

CNN.com obit on Jack Anderson

This is the obit that ran on CNN today. I like this one better than the one in the Post. You would think the Post would have run a more favorable one considering that was his home for so many years. But that article is actually fairly negative. This one shares some of the more interesting aspects of his life.


Howard Kurtz also ran his own personal story on Jack today in the Post. You can read it here .


I've been thinking today about what interesting and influential personalities I have had the good fortune to be around. Obviously Jack in his distant relative way has had a profound impact on me. But I've also had the opportunity to intern for Congressman John Doolittle, that I highly respect. He's a man that it is hard to find fault with. If you have ever spent much time in his presence you know that this is a man who will never get caught up in a scandal or muckracked in the papers. (or be called out in a Jack Anderson column) I've also worked with Pat Buchanan, who for all his faults, and whatever you may say about him, is a great journalist and writer as well. I'm not so sure that my politics are still entirely in line with Pat's. But getting to work near and under him, and even in the same car or room as him occasionally, was also a good experience. Working for Pat's 1996 GOP Presidential nomination campaign gave me an insider's view on who really makes up the leadership of this world. It also exposed me to the likes of EJ Dionne and David Brody (I worked in the press office). Is it any wonder with all of these influences that I chose to major in Political Communication and Broadcast Journalism?

Of course it does beg the question as to how it is I chose to leave real journalism to become an event manager for a gun company with a side gig as a romance advice columnist...

But when I think about the true exposure I have had to the "real world" I tend to get annoyed with the Monday morning quarterbacks and the armchair coaches of the political world who sit around and act like they know anything. I have a few friends who apparently know everything about the inner workings of government and what a politician's true motive was. To them I ask, "When was the last time you had dinner with a politician? When was the last time you worked in one of their offices? When was the last time you had a hunch something not right was going on and had to dig to find the story? When was the last time you actually worked for the government? Or in politics?"


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/17/AR2005121701223.html?nav=hcmodule
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/12/17/anderson.obit.ap/index.html