Irving Kristol, called the “godfather of neo-conservatism” by some, died today of complications from lung cancer. He was 89.

John Podhoretz has written a moving and comprehensive account of Kristol’s life and immense influence:

Irving, who died today at the age of 89, was the rarest of creatures—a thoroughgoing intellectual who was also a man of action. He was a maker of things, a builder of institutions, a harvester and disseminator and progenitor of ideas and the means whereby those ideas were made flesh.

The clarity of his thinking and the surety of his purpose were one and the same; they were immeasurably enhanced by a powerful curiosity for the way things worked and the ways in which things could be made to work better. His was a resteless intelligence, always on the move; there was not an idea he didn’t want to play with, and there wasn’t a new idea for a think tank or a magazine or a center for the study of something-or-other that didn’t excite him. He was a conservative by temperament and conviction, but he was an innovator to the depths of his being.

Commentary has collected all of his contributions to the magazine, some 45 pieces spanning 48 years, and posted them online. R.I.P.

Steve Benen and DougJ give NewsBusters’ Tim Graham a hard time for noting that the Washington Post obituary for Patrick Swayze, who died overnight from pancreatic cancer, fails to give “Red Dawn” its due, quipping, “There are clearly no fortysomething Reaganites working in the Washington Post newsroom.”

I was prepared to chide Benen and DJ for failing to get a self-deprecating joke, titling the original draft of this post “A Wolverine Ate Their Sense of Humor,” until I clicked through and read Graham’s original.  Sadly, his irony must be too subtle for me as well, as he titles the post “WaPo Patrick Swayze Obit Gets to His Drag-Queen Movie Before ‘Red Dawn’” and begins “Here’s a sign the Washington Post is a liberal newspaper.”  Later, he observes,

“Red Dawn” was not a prestigious film, but it was a breakout lead role for Swayze, and a completely shocking product coming out of a Hollywood: a movie about American teens fighting a resistance against a Soviet invasion of the United States.

While I haven’t seen the movie since college, I do recall it being quite enjoyable, although not as much so as “Taps,” another kids-go-martial flick of the same era.  But it’s not the sort of thing a film critic is going to gush over.  Heck, they even give short shrift to my favorite Swayze movie, “Next of Kin,” for reasons I perfectly understand.

Regardless, Swayze made quite a few good movies and seemed like a pretty good fellow.  It’s a shame that he died so young.

Christopher Hitchens is an iconoclast’s iconoclast, famously willing to piss on anyone’s grave, whether it be Mother Tereasa, Bob Hope, or Teddy Kennedy. Interestingly, this time he smacks down with one hand whilst patting on the back with the other:

Sure, the “tragedy” of Chappaquiddick had its necessary moment, but even in those days Barbara Walters was doing her damage control, and it was amazing to see a clip of Walter Cronkite referring deadpan to the “driving accident” that had kept Kennedy away from the Senate. It must take some ingenuity at the networks, even so, to simply airbrush the fascist sympathies and bootlegging background of Joseph Kennedy Sr., his sons’ murder campaigns in Cuba, the recruitment of the mafia for same, the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem in Vietnam, the increasingly frantic and pathetic narco-addictions of JFK, the exploitation of unstable broads like Marilyn Monroe, and so much else besides.

In some ways, this banana-republic coverage was a disservice even to the recently departed. After all, it was in part the case that the youngest brother had lived down the criminal and narcissistic and power-mad background of his family. His best biographer, Adam Clymer, wrote, on the morning after he died, that it was arguably wrong to see a discontinuity in Kennedy’s career and that he had actually been a decent-enough legislator before abandoning any yearning for the White House after 1980. This may be true as far as it goes, but the obituaries would still have had to be somewhat different in tone, even given the servility of the journalistic profession, if Kennedy had died at the time of the Au Bar episode in Palm Beach, for instance, and had not decided to take some kind of a pull on himself and become a citizen again instead of a drone.

A former Senate staffer of his stopped by for a drink last week and told me that, without fanfare, the socialist president of Chile had come in person to the Kennedy home a few months ago to bestow one of her nation’s highest human rights awards on him. His work on that subject alone was a part atonement for his siblings’ deployment of what Lyndon Johnson himself called “a goddam Murder Incorporated” in the Southern Hemisphere. So, of course, was his labor on health care (where Richard Nixon had a better political track record than the Kennedy administration) and his last decision to keep looking life in the face for as long as he had breath. In those waning months, after being disgusted by malicious anti-Obama propaganda being spread in the Democratic primaries—later picked up and used by the right in the general election—he withdrew his support from a candidate whose victory would have meant the continuation of the dynastic politics represented by the family names Bush, Gore, and Clinton. What a favor he did us all by that repudiation! And how fitting that it should have been a Kennedy who did it. The political rhetoric of Obamaism, alas, is even more bloviating at times than Camelot was, but you can’t have everything.

A fitting roundup, really.  The story of the youngest of the Kennedy brothers was of wretched excess and abuse of privilege followed by genuine and rather remarkable redemption.   As Hitch puts it in the close, “Kennedy’s very last year was quite possibly his best, and how many men or women will be able to say that?”

Senator Edward M. Kennedy died last night, aged 77, succumbing to brain cancer.

Edward Kennedy, Senate Stalwart, Dies (John Broder, NYT)

Doug Mills/The New York Times

Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, a son of one of the most storied families in American politics, a man who knew triumph and tragedy in near-equal measure and who will be remembered as one of the most effective lawmakers in the history of the Senate, died late Tuesday night. He was 77.

The death of Mr. Kennedy, who had been battling brain cancer, was announced Wednesday morning in a statement by the Kennedy family, which was already mourning the death of the senator’s sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver two weeks earlier.

“Edward M. Kennedy – the husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle we loved so deeply – died late Tuesday night at home in Hyannis Port,” the statement said. “We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever.”

“An important chapter in our history has come to an end,” President Obama said in a statement. “Our country has lost a great leader, who picked up the torch of his fallen brothers and became the greatest United States senator of our time.”

Mr. Kennedy had been in precarious health since he suffered a seizure in May 2008. His doctors determined the cause had been a malignant glioma, a brain tumor that often carries a grim prognosis.

As he underwent cancer treatment, Mr. Kennedy was little seen in Washington, appearing most recently at the White House in April as Mr. Obama signed a national service bill that bears the Kennedy name. Last week Mr. Kennedy urged Massachusetts lawmakers to change state law and let Gov. Deval Patrick appoint a temporary replacement upon his death, to assure that the state’s representation in Congress would not be interrupted by a special election.

While Mr. Kennedy had been physically absent from the capital in recent months, his presence had been deeply felt as Congress weighed the most sweeping revisions to America’s health care system in decades, an effort Mr. Kennedy called “the cause of my life.”

Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy Dies at 77 After Cancer Battle (Joe Holley, WaPo)

Edward M. Kennedy, one of the most powerful and influential senators in American history and one of three brothers whose political triumphs and personal tragedies captivated the nation for decades, died late Tuesday at his home in Hyannis Port, Mass., at age 77. He had been battling brain cancer.

His family announced his death in a brief statement released early Wednesday. “We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever,” the statement said. “We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice, fairness and opportunity for all.”

President Obama released a statement Wednesday morning, pointing out that “virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts. . . . Our country has lost a great leader, who picked up the torch of his fallen brothers and became the greatest United States Senator of our time. . . . Our hearts and prayers go out to” the Kennedy family.

Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, was the last male survivor of a privileged and charismatic family that in the 1960s dominated American politics and attracted worldwide attention. His sister, Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver, died two weeks ago, also in Hyannis Port. One sibling, former U.S. ambassador to Ireland Jean Kennedy Smith, is still alive.

As heir through tragedy to his accomplished older brothers — President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.), both of whom were assassinated — Edward Kennedy became the patriarch of his clan and a towering figure in the U.S. Senate to a degree neither of his siblings had been.

Kennedy served in the Senate through five of the most dramatic decades of the nation’s history. He became a lawmaker whose legislative accomplishments, political authority and gift for friendship across the political spectrum invited favorable comparisons to Daniel Webster, Henry Clay and a handful of other leviathans of the country’s most elite political body. But he was also beset by personal frailties and family misfortunes that were the stuff of tabloid headlines.

For years, many Democrats considered Kennedy’s own presidency a virtual inevitability. In 1968, a “Draft Ted” campaign emerged only a few months after Robert Kennedy’s death, but he demurred, realizing he was not prepared to be president.

Political observers considered him the candidate to beat in 1972, but that possibility came to an end on a night in July 1969, when the senator drove his Oldsmobile off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, Mass., and a young female passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned. The tragedy had a corrosive effect on Kennedy’s image, eroding his national standing. He made a dismal showing when he challenged President Jimmy Carter for reelection in 1980. But the moment of his exit from the presidential stage marked an oratorical highlight when, speaking at the Democratic National Convention, he invoked his brothers and promised: “For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on. The cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die.”

Kennedy dead at 77 (Martin Nolan, Boston Globe)

Senator Edward M. Kennedy

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who carried aloft the torch of a Massachusetts dynasty and a liberal ideology to the citadel of Senate power, but whose personal and political failings may have prevented him from realizing the ultimate prize of the presidency, died at his home in Hyannis Port last night after a battle with brain cancer. He was 77.

“We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever,” his family said in a statement. “We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice, fairness, and opportunity for all. He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it. He always believed that our best days were still ahead, but it’s hard to imagine any of them without him.’’

Overcoming a history of family tragedy, including the assassinations of a brother who was president and another who sought the presidency, Senator Kennedy seized the role of being a “Senate man.’’ He became a Democratic titan of Washington who fought for the less fortunate, who crafted unlikely deals with conservative Republicans, and who ceaselessly sought support for universal health coverage.

“Teddy,’’ as he was known to intimates, constituents, and even his fiercest enemies, was an unwavering symbol to the left and the right – the former for his unapologetic embrace of liberalism, and latter for his value as a political target. But with his fiery rhetoric, his distinctive Massachusetts accent, and his role as representative of one of the nation’s best-known political families, he was widely recognized as an American original. In the end, some of those who might have been his harshest political enemies, including former President George W. Bush, found ways to collaborate with the man who was called the “last lion’’ of the Senate.

Senator Kennedy’s White House aspirations may have been doomed by his actions on the night he drove off a bridge at Chappaquiddick Island in 1969 and failed to promptly report the accident in which Mary Jo Kopechne, who had worked for his brother Robert, died. When Kennedy nonetheless later sought to wrest the presidential nomination from an incumbent Democrat, Jimmy Carter, he failed. But that failure prompted him to reevaluate his place in history, and he dedicated himself to fulfilling his political agenda by other means, famously saying, “the dream shall never die.’’

Ted Kennedy Dies of Brain Cancer at Age 77 – ‘Liberal Lion’ of the Senate Led Storied Political Family After Deaths of President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (ABC)

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Sen. Ted Kennedy died shortly before midnight Tuesday at his home in Hyannis Port, Mass., at age 77.

The man known as the “liberal lion of the Senate” had fought a more than year-long battle with brain cancer, and according to his son had lived longer with the disease than his doctors expected him to.

“We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever,” the Kennedy family said in a statement. “He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it.”

Sen. Edward Moore Kennedy, the youngest Kennedy brother who was left to head the family’s political dynasty after his brothers President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated.

Kennedy championed health care reform, working wages and equal rights in his storied career. In August, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the nation’s highest civilian honor — by President Obama. His daughter, Kara Kennedy, accepted the award on his behalf.

U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy dies at 77 – Liberal lion loses yearlong battle with brain cancer at Massachusetts home (NBC News/wire)

Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the liberal lion of the Senate and haunted bearer of the Camelot torch after two of his brothers fell to assassins’ bullets, has died at his home in Hyannis Port after battling a brain tumor. He was 77.

For nearly a half-century in the Senate, Kennedy was a steadfast champion of the working class and the poor, a powerful voice on health care, civil rights, and war and peace. To the American public, though, he was best known as the last surviving son of America’s most glamorous political family, the eulogist of a clan shattered again and again by tragedy.

[...]

Kennedy was elected to the Senate in 1962, when his brother John was president, and served longer than all but two senators in history. Over the decades, he put his imprint on every major piece of social legislation to clear the Congress.

His own hopes of reaching the White House were damaged — perhaps doomed — in 1969 by the scandal that came to be known as Chappaquiddick, an auto accident that left a young woman dead.

Kennedy — known to family, friends and foes simply as Ted — ended his quest for the presidency in 1980 with a stirring valedictory that echoed across the decades: “For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die.”

[...]

Nancy Reagan, the widow of President Ronald Reagan, was one of the first to speak out from the Republican Party.

“Given our political differences, people are sometimes surprised by how close Ronnie and I have been to the Kennedy family,” she said in a statement.

“But Ronnie and Ted could always find common ground, and they had great respect for one another. In recent years, Ted and I found our common ground in stem cell research, and I considered him an ally and a dear friend. I will miss him,” she said.

Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose wife, Maria Shriver, was Kennedy’s niece, praised “the rock of our family: a loving husband, father, brother and uncle.”

That the Chappaquiddick scandal didn’t make the first several paragraphs — or even first page — of several of these obits is quite remarkable. It would be like writing an obit for Richard Nixon that didn’t mention Watergate or one for Michael Jackson that glossed over repeated allegations of pedophilia.

That said, Kennedy was obviously much more than his actions on the worst night of his life. While he could be incredibly partisan, even vitriolically so on some issues, he was almost universally acknowledged even by opponents as an honorable negotiating partner and an outstanding legislator.

See my followup, “Mary Jo Kopechne.”

This morning, Jeff Jarvis passed along Peter Daou’s tweet “CBS Early Show Prioritizes Jon & Kate Over Don Hewitt’s Death,” which linked this Consider This News video, itself prefaced “This speaks volumes about the state of TV news”

My tweeted retort: “Old man dying yesterday not news?”

Steven Taylor has some more detailed thoughts, notably that morning news shows have never been the height of journalism and that TV news as infotainment is something that Hewitt himself ushered in with “60 Minutes.” Quite so.

But my half-baked reply, constrained with the 140 character limits of the medium while re-tweeting the original, is also worth exploring a bit further.

Don Hewitt was a giant in the industry and his death is both notable and as good a time as any to reflect back on his accomplishments.  Which, one presumes, CBS went on to do later in the show.

But his passing did not constitute news by this morning.   I knew about it rather early yesterday morning. Josh Marshall posted about it at 11:33, I got a CNN email alert at 11:41, and I’m rather sure I saw it before that via Twitter.  Anyone who watches television news before the crack of dawn, then, likely already knew of Hewitt’s passing.

Further, Hewitt was 86 years old and had pancreatic cancer.  His passing was hardly the shock of, say, Michael Jackson dropping dead at 50.

As to Jon and Kate and their sordid mess, I couldn’t care less.  But I’m not the target audience for the CBS Early Show, either.

Conservative columnist and former CNN “Crossfire” host Robert Novak has died at age 78 of cancer, his family says. – CNN Breaking News

Chicago Sun Times (”Robert Novak: Innovator’s life marked by passion“)

Most people know the late Sun-Times columnist Robert D. Novak, who died this morning [Tuesday] from complications of a brain tumor, as a journalist. And indeed he was among the best this country has produced. Simply stated, Bob was a relentless reporter. His political columns were marked by his determination to dig out new information, behind-the-scenes anecdotes and Washington secrets to tell us something we didn’t know. He combined that with sharp analysis, insightful commentary and passion about the issues facing the nation to emerge as a brawling contestant in the great national debates of his era.

Firmly planted in the print world with his widely read syndicated thrice-a-week column, Bob also was an innovator in the electronic media. With the CNN programs “Capital Gang” and “Crossfire,” Bob pioneered the brash, no-holds-barred public affairs programming so familiar to viewers of cable news television today.

But more than that, his contributions to the great debates of the day demonstrated that Bob was someone who thought deeply about his country, its system of government and the challenges both faced. For example, in his 2000 book Completing the Revolution: A Vision for Victory in 2000, Bob offered his views on how America should build on the freedom legacy of President Reagan.

Lynn Sweet, CST (”Robert Novak, Chicago Sun-Times Columnist, “Prince of Darkness” died Tuesday”)

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak, one of the nation’s most influential journalists, who relished his “Prince of Darkness” public persona, died at home here early Tuesday morning after a battle with brain cancer.

“He was someone who loved being a journalist, love journalism and loved his country and loved his family, Novak’s wife, Geraldine, told the Sun-Times on Tuesday.

“Bob was always the pro, no matter what he had going on he was always at the ready to help out on stories, and he broke more than his share. Even as he became a national figure he was always proud to be part of the Sun-Times and we were proud of him,” said Don Hayner, Editor in Chief of the Chicago Sun-Times.

Novak’s remarkable and long-running career made him a powerful presence in newspaper columns, newsletters, books and on television.

On May 15, 1963, Novak teamed up with the late Rowland Evans Jr. to create the “Inside Report” political column, which became the must-read syndicated column. Evans tapped Novak, then a 31-year old correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, to help with the workload of a six-day-a-week column.

Evans and Novak were the odd couple: Evans a Philadelphia blue blood and Yale graduate; Novak from Joliet, Ill. who attended the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana campus.

Novak handled the column solo after Evans retired in 1993. The Chicago Sun-Times has been Novak’s home paper since 1966.

Tim Carney, Human Events (”Remembering Bob Novak“)

Bob Novak hired me away from HUMAN EVENTS in late 2001. “Poaching,” HE Editor-in-Chief Tom Winter called it. I was not the first early-20s reporter Novak would pluck from HE’s newsroom. Nor would I be the last.

Work for us Novak reporters, in addition to writing the Evans-Novak Political Report, consisted of doing “the opposite of research,” as I put it. Rather than trying to find an answer to a question Novak had — he had another staffer for that — we would try to dig up scoops, leads, and unreported nuggets to feed him.

That Novak would hire a leg-man to go around Washington sniffing out news reflected the virtue at the heart of his work: His columns, while they resided on the op-ed pages, were built upon previously unreported facts that revealed and explained the machinations of government, the men and women in power, and the politics behind it all. His job demanded he get a constant flow of new information, but curiosity and a thirst for knowledge were natural traits for him.

Ken Tomlinson, Human Events (Robert Novak,1931-2009

The Evans-Novak column ran under the title “the Sonnenfeldt Doctrine.” When I finished reading that early spring day in 1976, I remember thinking, this is quintessential Bob Novak.

State Department Counselor Helmut Sonnenfeldt had told a London gathering of American ambassadors that Soviet domination of Eastern Europe was actually necessary for world peace. In fact, Poland was a good example of the benefits of Soviet control because that had enabled the Poles to overcome their “romantic” political instincts which had led to so many “disasters in their past.”

This column had almost everything. Those words were contained in an official State Department cable slipped to Novak by a highly placed source. Henry Kissinger’s right-hand man was confirming that détente was code for Communist victory over freedom. Within days, candidate Ronald Reagan who was challenging President Ford in Republican primaries, declared the Sonnenfeldt Doctrine meant “slaves should accept their fate.”

[...]

Ford survived the conservative eruption over Sonnenfeldt’s words only to have the column indirectly revived in his presidential debate with Jimmy Carter. A New York Times reporter asked the President about Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and, still defensive over the Sonnenfeldt Doctrine, the hapless Ford stubbornly insisted that the Polish people were free.

The election was over.

I’m sure plenty of other remembrances will be fortchoming; Novak had a long and distinguished career.

Somewhere in the early paragraphs of most, I suspect, will be the name Valerie Plame.  His offhand mention of the CIA operative whose role in sending her husband, Joe Wilson, to investigate the “yellowcake” matter sparked the biggest domestic scandal of the Bush Administration and ultimately landed Scooter Libby in jail.

While I would later discover his columns, I got to know Novak over the years as a viewer of the various CNN talking heads shows on which he appeared, most notably “Crossfire.”  He played a caracature of himself, “The Prince of Darkness,” and was frankly not a very good commentator.   He was, however, a superb columnist and reporter.

The Plame matter will likely overshadow most of that, though, especially for those under 35 or so who never knew Novak for anything else.

Former Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon has died.  He was only 64.

Kenneth H. Bacon, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who became chief Pentagon spokesman under President Bill Clinton, died Saturday at age 64.

Bacon had been battling melanoama, and was on leave was his job as president of Refugees International, a Washington-based group he joined in early 2001.

[...]

“Prior to working at RI, Mr. Bacon was Assistant Secretary, Public Affairs, at the U.S. Department of Defense and served as Pentagon spokesman from 1994-2001. From 1969 to 1994, he was a reporter, editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal based in Washington, DC. He received his Bachelor’s degree from Amherst College, and a Master’s degree in Business Administration and Master’s degree in Journalism.”

Sad news.

Apparently, whoever wrote this obituary for The Telegraph has never heard the maxims “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” or “Don’t speak ill of the dead.”

Joseph Msika, who died on August 4 aged 85, was vice-president of Zimbabwe and a central figure in his country’s headlong rush to ruin.

A foul-mouthed, embittered man, much given to swearing in public and delivering foam-flecked speeches, Msika was perhaps the only Zimbabwean who could outdo President Robert Mugabe when it came to verbal vitriol. The targets of his bile included journalists, farmers, all young Zimbabweans – who had allegedly failed to match his standards of patriotism and devotion – and white people in general.

I’m guessing a caucasian wrote the obit, which continues in this delicious manner for several more paragraphs.

via Margaret Soltan

Captain Scott Speicher’s remains have been found more than eighteen years after he was shot down during Desert Storm.

The remains of the first American lost in the Persian Gulf War have been found in Iraq, the military said Sunday, after struggling for nearly two decades with the question of whether he was dead or alive.

The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology has positively identified the remains of Navy Capt. Michael “Scott” Speicher, whose disappearance has bedeviled investigators since his fighter jet was shot down over the Iraq desert on the first night of the 1991 war.

The top Navy officer said the discovery illustrates the military’s commitment to bring its troops home. “Our Navy will never give up looking for a shipmate, regardless of how long or how difficult that search may be,” said Adm. Gary Roughead, Chief of Naval Operations. “We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Captain Speicher and his family for the sacrifice they have made for our nation and the example of strength they have set for all of us.”

The Pentagon initially declared Speicher killed, but uncertainty — and the lack of remains — led officials over the years to change his official status a number of times to “missing in action” and later “missing-captured.”

Family spokeswoman Cindy Laquidara said relatives learned on Saturday that Speicher’s remains had been found. “The family’s proud of the way the Defense Department continued on with our request” to not abandon the search for the downed pilot, she said. “We will be bringing him home.”

It’s great that the family finally has closure.

UPDATE: Speicher was a Lieutenant Commander at the time he was shot down.  Per tradition, he was promoted with his peers over the years, a practice that applies to both prisoners of war and those missing in action.

Walter Cronkite has passed:

Walter Cronkite, the premier TV anchorman of the networks’ golden age who reported a tumultuous time with reassuring authority and came to be called “the most trusted man in America,” died Friday. He was 92. Cronkite’s longtime chief of staff, Marlene Adler, said Cronkite died at 7:42 p.m. at his Manhattan home surrounded by family. She said the cause of death was cerebral vascular disease.

Adler said, “I have to go now” before breaking down into what sounded like a sob. She said she had no further comment.

Cronkite was the face of the “CBS Evening News” from 1962 to 1981, when stories ranged from the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to racial and anti-war riots, Watergate and the Iranian hostage crisis.

It was Cronkite who read the bulletins coming from Dallas when Kennedy was shot Nov. 22, 1963, interrupting a live CBS-TV broadcast of the soap opera “As the World Turns.”

Cronkite was the broadcaster to whom the title “anchorman” was first applied, and he came so identified in that role that eventually his own name became the term for the job in other languages. (Swedish anchors are known as Kronkiters; In Holland, they are Cronkiters.)

“He was a great broadcaster and a gentleman whose experience, honesty, professionalism and style defined the role of anchor and commentator,” CBS Corp. chief executive Leslie Moonves said in a statement.

CBS has scheduled a prime-time special, “That’s the Way it Was: Remembering Walter Cronkite,” for 7 p.m. Sunday.

His 1968 editorial declaring the United States was “mired in stalemate” in Vietnam was seen by some as a turning point in U.S. opinion of the war. He also helped broker the 1977 invitation that took Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem, the breakthrough to Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel.

He followed the 1960s space race with open fascination, anchoring marathon broadcasts of major flights from the first suborbital shot to the first moon landing, exclaiming, “Look at those pictures, wow!” as Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon’s surface in 1969. In 1998, for CNN, he went back to Cape Canaveral to cover John Glenn’s return to space after 36 years.

“It is impossible to imagine CBS News, journalism or indeed America without Walter Cronkite,” CBS News president Sean McManus said in a statement. “More than just the best and most trusted anchor in history, he guided America through our crises, tragedies and also our victories and greatest moments.”

Cronkite lived to a ripe old age and his health had been failing, so this is hardly a shock.    I wasn’t old enough during Vietnam for his controversial remarks to cloud my judgment of his career, which mostly came in the last five or so years of his time as anchor and then as elder statesman.

It’s often said that there will never be another like someone who has just passed on.  In Cronkite’s case, it’s not hyperbole.  He was universally respected but shuffled out the door far too early, just toward the end of the period when people were simply expected to go away when the reached a certain age.  At roughly the time same, David Brinkley, Harry Reasoner, and John Chancellor were moved along, too, with then-youngsters Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, and Tom Brokaw brought in to fill their chairs.  All of them did so with distinction but they never occupied the same central role that the previous generation had.  And none will be anywhere near as powerful as even they were.   Katie Couric could well be the last anchor at CBS News; in any event, no one will much care.

And that’s the way it was, Friday, July 17, 2009.

Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara, who made news three years ago when she gave birth to twins at the age of 66, has died.

[S]he had been diagnosed with cancer shortly after giving birth.

In 2007, Ms Bousada de Lara said she had lied about her age to doctors at a fertility clinic in California to get IVF treatment, telling them she was 55.

Ms Bousada de Lara argued that there was no reason to believe she would not have as long a life as her mother, who died at the age of 101. She even joked that she might live to see her grandchildren.  She also insisted that if she died prematurely her sons Christian and Pau, who are now two years old, would never be alone. “There are lots of young people in our family,” she added.

When the twins were born in Barcelona on 29 December 2006, Ms Bousada de Lara was aged 66 years 358 days, 130 days older than Romanian Adriana Iliescu, who gave birth in 2005 to a baby girl.

Sad on several levels.

I’m not sure at exactly what point one becomes too old to responsibly have children but I’m pretty sure 66 is on the wrong side of the line.  My wife, Kim, and I had our first child, Katie, on New Year’s Eve.  Kim was (and is) 38 and I was (and am) 43, already older than my parents were when I graduated high school.  All of Katie’s living grandparents were 65 at the time.

Obviously, none of us know how long we’ve got.  And having a family history of longevity is a reasonable factor to consider.  But, seriously, 66?

Breaking news from CNN: “Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, architect of U.S. war in Vietnam, has died at 93, according to his family.”

I click the link and get:

Seriously?

AP has a more fitting obituary:

In a Nov. 17, 1961 file photo, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara holds a news conference at the Pentagon. Former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara died Monday, jULY 6, 2009, according to his wife. He was 93. (AP Photo/Harvey Georges, File)

Robert S. McNamara, the cerebral secretary of defense who was vilified for prosecuting America’s most controversial war and then devoted himself to helping the world’s poorest nations, died Monday. He was 93.

McNamara died at 5:30 a.m. at his home, his wife Diana told The Associated Press. She said he had been in failing health for some time.

For all his healing efforts, McNamara was fundamentally associated with the Vietnam War, “McNamara’s war,” the country’s most disastrous foreign venture, the only American war to end in abject withdrawal rather than victory.

Known as a policymaker with a fixation for statistical analysis, McNamara was recruited to run the Pentagon by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 from the presidency of the Ford Motor Co. He stayed seven years, longer than anyone since the job’s creation in 1947.

[...]

After leaving the Pentagon on the verge of a nervous breakdown, McNamara became president of the World Bank and devoted evangelical energies to the belief that improving life in rural communities in developing countries was a more promising path to peace than the buildup of arms and armies.

Much more at the link. By any measure, 93 is a ripe old age.

The list of major celebrities who have died in recent days is staggering.  Ed McMahon.  Farrah Fawcett.  Michael Jackson.  Billy Mays. Karl Malden. Steve McNair.

Ironically, however, Abe Vigoda — who was famously erroneously declared dead by People magazine way back in 1982 — is still alive and kicking at 88.

Aaron Brazell argues that, with the advent of instant-reporting of rumor via Twitter and other social media, the mainstream press has fallen behind.  He cites yesterday’s Steve McNair murder, the false rumors that Jeff Goldblum had died, and Michael Jackson’s death.

He laments that, while the McNair news broke on two Nashville stations but “It was a long time (30 minutes or so) before national media picked it up. ESPN, the Worldwide Leader in Sports by their own slogan, didn’t have it. No one did. We were left gasping for more. Is the rumor true? Can anyone confirm? Can police confirm?”

Major media got a little jittery in the past. After 9/11. With other reports that turned into an overcompensation. Fact is, major media can safely report on a rumor as long as it is billed as such. No one has to say that this is confirmed. But people want to know. We get our news on the internet.

We find out about things happening in Iran via Twitter. We find out about Michael Jackson dying… on Twitter. We read blogs that deal with Sarah Palin’s awkwardly bizarre resignation at Alaska governor. We’re not watching your TV stations. We’re not in Nashville. Welcome to the global economy.

Report the damn news and report it as a rumor to hedge your bets. But report the news.

Because I was out and about with the family yesterday, I first saw the news of McNair’s death at YahooNews a half hour or so after it broke nationally and blogged my instant reaction immediately.

I saw reports that Michael Jackson died on Twitter and frantically searched for confirmation.  I did a Breaking News blog post reporting that 1) LA Times had Jackson hospitalized and that 2) several reports that he was dead, all sourced to TMZ, were out.  I updated it shortly thereafter with news that multiple legitimate sources were confirming.

(I saw the reports of Goldblum’s death on Twitter, too, but they were debunked in near-real-time.)

With rare exception, I prefer that the mainstream press report known facts rather than rumors.

People seeing rumors of Jackson’s death on Twitter or TMZ who much cared were presumably searching for confirmation on their own just as I was.  Otherwise, I’m not sure what harm is done to the collective pool of knowledge by having it reported that Jackson was rushed to the hospital — a known fact — and waiting 30 minutes or an hour or so to report that he was dead once that was confirmed.  Conversely, falsely reporting that someone has died has serious consequences.

The McNair story is slowly unfolding as a bizarre soap opera, with alternate reports of murder-suicide and double homicide.  While McNair was undoubtedly an important figure in the world of sports and his murder in the prime of life constitutes breaking news in Nashville and Baltimore (where he played professionally) and for sports pages, I’m not sure what harm there is in taking 30 minutes to gather facts on such a sensitive story.

Indeed, the Goldblum rumor provides a classic cautionary tale.  I for one am rather glad that false reports of Goldblum’s death weren’t flashed on the crawl of every TV show in America.

Like Aaron, I’m a news junkie.  I want my information now.  But unconfirmed rumor is not news; it’s gossip.  If TMZ is wrong about Jackson’s death, nobody will much care; it’s a gossip rag.  If the LAT gets it wrong, though, it loses credibility as a news organization.

There are certainly times when reporting speculation is required.  If, for example, there were reports about an attempt on the life of the president, it’s a national crisis that demands instant reporting.  There were all manner of false reports, for example, when President Reagan was shot, notably the reporting that James Brady had been killed when it turned out he was just horribly wounded.  Similarly, the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks demanded 24/7 wall-to-wall coverage and reporting of “facts” as they came in.

Rumors that pop singers and retired athletes have died, however, can go unreported for a few minutes while reporters do some rudimentary fact checking.

Photo by Flickr user Joost Strootman under Creative Commons license.

Steve McNair is dead:

Former NFL MVP Steve McNair has been shot and killed. Titans owner Bud Adams confirmed the quarterback’s death in a brief statement released Saturday.

Adams called him “one of the finest players to play for our organization and one of the most beloved players by our fans. He played with unquestioned heart and leadership and led us to places that we had never reached, including our only Super Bowl.”

McNair led the Titans within a yard of forcing overtime in the 2000 Super Bowl.

Truly sad news.   The man was only 36 years old and retired from football a little over a year ago.

He had a DUI and a gun charge but was not a member of the thug culture that so many professional athletes seem to hang onto despite their success.  Preliminary reports have it as a double homicide.  A woman, not his wife, was also killed.