Things Worth Fighting for: Collected Writings

The collected articles and columns of Michael Kelly, award-winning reporter, war correspondent, columnist, and editor, whose passion for the good story and whose candor and wit made him one of the foremost journalists of our time.

His career reflected myriad colors: he wrote for a large variety of publications, covering a multitude of topics — political, international, and personal — with singular insight, passion, and wit. This collection of his most memorable magazine and newspaper stories and columns — drawn from the Washington Post, New York Times, The New Yorker, The New Republic, and other publications — puts on full display the dazzling panoply of his gifts: for physical description and scene setting; for telling detail, brilliant simile, and satirical insight; for prose that is at once mathematically precise and lyrical.

Here are the searing portraits of Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, H. Ross Perot, and other seminal political figures of our time that won Kelly national attention. Here are the stunning dispatches from the first Gulf War that earned him the National Magazine Award for reporting and burnished his journalistic legend. Here are the fierce columns and landmark cover stories that raised disturbing questions about Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the deeply incestuous relationship between Washington, D.C.'s political and media cultures. And here are the loving family portraits and hilarious social commentaries.

Things Worth Fighting For represents the body of work of a journalist who demonstrated time and again a surpassing talent for penetrating to the heart of the matter, for advancing far beyond the headlines and surface appearances of people and events to find their true meanings, for getting the story other writers missed and telling it with a verve few other writers could match.

"The book's strength lies in the impact of having Kelly's war essays in one place, in chronological order, giving them a power they didn't have when sprinkled weekly in the press." Publishers Weekly

"[S]plendid....Against [the] highlights, some of Kelly's curmudgeonly, conservative cultural pieces pale. But the highlights are brilliant indeed, showing that American journalism lost much with Kelly's passing." Kirkus Reviews

"[Kelly's] analyses were cogent, trenchant, and, interestingly, conservative....The columns display not only expansive interests...but also a journalistic eye that encompassed telling details usually overlooked by other reporters." Library Journal

This volume features the collected articles and columns of the late Michael Kelly, award-winning reporter, war correspondent, columnist, and editor, whose passion for the good story and whose candor and wit made him one of the world's foremost journalists.

Michael Kelly's remarkably varied career ranged from war correspondent to presidential campaign reporter to syndicated columnist to editor of three magazines (most recently the award-winning Atlantic Monthly). Publications he wrote for included the New York Times, The New Yorker, GQ, and Baltimore Sun. His coverage of the Gulf War won a National Magazine Award and an Overseas Press Award, and his 1992 book, Martyrs' Day: Chronicle of a Small War, won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award. While covering the Iraq war as editor at large of the Atlantic Monthly and a columnist for the Washington Post, he was killed on April 4, 2003, when the humvee he was riding in came under fire. He is survived by his wife and two sons.

Introduction
Editor's Foreword
I Visions of America 1
King of Cool 3
Girth of a Nation 5
Three Things I've Learned Since Kindergarten 7
Faux Commotion 9
Good Riddance to the "New Man" 11
The Road to Paranoia 15
Imitation Activism 40
Oh, Those Heartwarming Communists 42
The Systematic Corruption of the Catholic Church 44
Getting Hip to Squareness 46
The Nice Column 49
II The Game 51
Master of the Game 53
Wonk New World 79
A Plea for Diversity 82
The Midlife Crisis of Jesse Jackson 84
Banality and Evil 102
A National Calamity 105
Mass Sentimentality 107
Richard Daley Jr. Gets the Last Laugh 109
Texas-Size Failure 124
But What About Dad? 128
Ted Kennedy on the Rocks 130
Truth Be Told 149
III The Age of Clinton 153
A Man Who Wants to Be Liked, and Is 155
The Making of a First Family: A Blueprint 161
Saint Hillary 165
The President's Past 178
Clinton's Escape Clause 205
Bob Dole's Last Hurrah 219
Class 224
The Reich Stuff 227
The Artful Dodger and the Good Son 229
I Believe 231
I Still Believe 233
A Pathetic Speech — and Untrue 235
"Hairsplitting" 237
Farmer Al 239
Starr Wars: The Twenty-first Century 241
That's Entertainment 243
Conan the VP 245
Clinton Versus Bush 247
IV Wars and Peace 251
Before the Storm 253
Blitzed 257
Desert Rat 261
Souk Kook 264
Speech Defect 267
Kiss of Victory 270
The Rape and Rescue of Kuwait City 274
Highway to Hell 282
Rolls-Royce Revolutionaries 287
The Other Hell 294
Back to the Hills 298
The Fear of Death 307
Where Are the Dead? 309
The Visionaries of the Irish Agreement 320
Ignoring Nuclear Threats 322
Arafat Bombs on Opening Night 324
Mideast Myths Exploded 348
When Innocents Are the Enemy 351
Who We Are 353
With a Serious and Large Intent 355
Chicken Little Media 357
Return of the "Chicken Hawks" 359
In a Borrowed Tie 361
Exit Hussein 363
Immorality on the March 365
Who Would Choose Tyranny? 367
A Letter from Kuwait City 369
Battle Stations of the Press 372
The Calm Before 374
Warriors at Work 376
A "Much Tougher" Fight 378
Limited War, So Far 380
Across the Euphrates 382
V Family Wealth 385
Family Wealth 387
The Lure of the Evil Weed 389
Back to You, Tom 391
Some Closing Thoughts 393
Sunshine on My Shoulders 394
Growing Up with Mr. Fixit 396
The Nine Days of Tom and Jack 398
Epilogue: E-Mails from the Front 401
Source Notes 417
Index 421
Acknowledgments 427
About the Author 428