Kelly and Friedman Get Wartime Kudos

By: Dave Astor The sword may be mightier than the pen these days, but some columnists wrote memorable commentary during the Iraq war. E&P Online asked 25 people who among those commentators did it best - with the proviso that columnists couldn't name themselves and syndicate editors couldn't vote for writers from their own rosters.

Michael Kelly, who died in Iraq, was cited by three of the 15 willing to vote. "He took a risk to cover the war from the closest possible vantage point while the rest of us stayed home," said Ellen Goodman of The Boston Globe and Washington Post Writers Group (WPWG), which also syndicated Kelly.

"His death is a tragic loss in our field," added Suzette Martinez Standring, vice president of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and columnist for the Milton (Mass.) Times. One reason she liked Kelly's WPWG war writing was his "wry sense of humor in characterizing folks he met while embedded."

Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel/Tribune Media Services columnist Kathleen Parker named Kelly, WPWG's Charles Krauthammer, and TMS' Jonah Goldberg ("my favorite columnist for pure reading pleasure, including his discussions of the war"). And she was one of four citing Thomas L. Friedman of The New York Times and New York Times News Service (NYTNS).

"He was a must-read for me," Lee Salem, Universal Press Syndicate's executive vice president and editor, said of Friedman. One reason: "During the war, he soon started addressing the aftermath of the war, which is a critical question."

Standring said of Friedman and WPWG's Fareed Zakaria: "They made the messy business of events, data, and history digestible and understandable."

Alan Shearer, WPWG's editorial director and general manager, chose Friedman
(for "helping us comprehend Arab reactions to the war"), Parker (for commentary on war coverage), and William Safire of the Times and NYTNS.

Other Commentators Nominated

Another Times/NYTNS columnist was picked by King Features Syndicate Managing Editor Glenn Mott, who said: "Paul Krugman didn't lose sight of the budget, jobs, and other parts of the [Bush] administration agenda. He linked the war to what was going on with the economy - and did it really well."

WPWG columnist Jim Hoagland nominated WPWG's David Ignatius for "gutsy and good" columns from the war zone.

Creators Syndicate President Rick Newcombe cited all the columnists who predicted a quick U.S. military victory, saying: "The hawks looked wrong at first, but they obviously proved correct." He stressed, though, that the postwar situation in Iraq might not be as easy for the U.S.

Columnist Norman Solomon of Creators named that syndicate's Robert Scheer and Molly Ivins, and Universal's duo of Patrisia Gonzales and Roberto Rodriguez. "I appreciate the columnists who stuck their necks out during the height of the war," Solomon said. "In contrast, most pundits who dissented from the war plans were unwilling to strongly oppose the war once it began. This pattern is very dangerous; it encourages a president to believe that starting a war is a good way to end substantive debate about the wisdom of going to war in the first place."

Several voters also chose columnists - such as Christopher Hitchens, Andrew Sullivan, and the team of Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman - known more for non-newspaper work.

One executive thought it was unfair to choose favorite columnists. "To single out only a few," said TMS Vice President for Marketing Stephen Tippie, "would do a disservice to all the fine writing that has resulted from the war."