18 August 2004
Peter Smith
Things Worth Fighting For
Things Worth Fighting For, published in March, comprises a large selection of articles and essays by journalist Mike Kelly, former editor-in-chief of The Atlantic Monthly, killed April 5, 2003, when the Humvee in which he was riding as an embedded reporter in Iraq came under fire and plunged into the Euphrates. By the time I had read less than one fifth of the book — including essays about Kenneth Starr, Teddy Kennedy, David Gergen, a few others — it was enough to convince me that our country has lost a very important writer, someone who had a good chance of emulating his heroes, George Orwell and A.J. Liebling, as a truth-teller.
And I cannot escape the conviction that I must hold George W. Bush personally responsible for this loss, for the death of Mike Kelly, just as I hold him personally responsible for the death of Sergio Vieira de Mello, the head of the United Nations staff in Iraq who was killed, along with many others, when the UN offices in Baghdad were bombed one year ago — August 19, 2003. I feel about Kelly as I did when we were told that Sergio Vieira de Millo had been killed: that someone had died who was a thousand times the man George W. Bush is; a man who would not have been in harm's way at all but for being in the place that Bush's personal, illegal, unnecessary, appalling war was raging.
I write those words in spite of the fact that I believe a crucial and fundamental truth uttered by a wise man for whom I once worked: "You can never know another person well enough to do him justice." Given how much has been written about him, I think I may well know enough about the President to do him justice. I believe he is responsible for the deaths of many, many people — men and women, known and unknown — who were worth hundreds of times more than he is.
I do not forget that I have not known the trauma that comes with the death of a sibling, as Mr. Bush has; I readily admit that I have never had to face the horror of alcoholism, which he faced, and managed — against the odds, surely — to put it behind him.
But I do know the misery of seeing young people waste, utterly waste, flush down the toilet, the incredible privilege of being offered an education at one of the world's greatest universities. And I believe it is abundantly clear that George W. Bush did exactly that. And I have seen people in positions of power bring to the edge of disaster the very institutions for whose stewardship they were responsible by using them to settle personal scores and pursue personal agendas.
George W. Bush has no excuse to offer for the horror he has inflicted on thousands of his fellow citizens, and on many more thousands of Iraqis who have done nothing more egregious than be born in a wretchedly-governed country that sits on a vast reservoir of the fuel we Westerners "need" to maintain our absurd lifestyles. So I will shell out what money I can and I will sign petitions and I will urge everyone I know to register to vote, and then to go out and vote to bring to an end this loathsome administration. I don't much care if you think that this is an over-emotional reaction to having read the words of Michael Kelly, a man of grace and intelligence and compassion, the father of two young children, dead at the age of 46.
If it takes an "over-emotional" reaction to the death of a brilliant journalist to bring me to my senses, so be it. I hope it's contagious.
Peter Smith is emeritus dean of Columbia University School of the Arts.
Copyright 2004 by Buffalo Report, Inc.