Great loss for real journalism.

I really liked this guy's op-ed pieces.

Eric Alterman is probably dancing a jig.

Oh my God . . . this is the worst news I've heard in a long, long time!

I can't believe it. Arnett goes to work for that two-bit commie rag, Geraldo gets to priss his ass all over the place, and Kelly goes down.

Go figure it.

Kelly's last article in the Post - Rest in peace, Michael, and thanks.

This is terrible news. I read his column every week. It get's personal after a while, like you know them. I will miss seeing his name on the scroll of columnists on Drudge.

This is a serious blow to impartial journalism - Michael Kelly was a pathbreaker, a D.C. native who understood politics from the inside out, and a journalist of remarkable integrity. This is heartbreaking.

Truly sad. Kelly will be missed.

I loved what he did with Atlantic Monthly - it is awful news.

May his soul rest in peace!

A tragedy. God Bless his brave soul. He too, fought for freedom, by speaking out with a clear voice, based in principle. This was a guy who could tell the difference between truth and lies, good and evil, black and white. When the Emperor had no clothes, he spoke out about it. He will be missed.

Thoughts and prayers go to his family.

Just awful. RIP.

Go read this, and reflect: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michaelkelly/mk20021030.shtml

Kelly was a good reporter - I looked forward to reading his work in The Atlantic and the Post. My sincere condolences to his family and all who knew him.

The sad but inevitable downside to covering wars ...

Major, irreparable loss.

This is devastating. Just awful! What a tremendous loss. What an awesome talent. BAH!

This is awful. Just yesterday, I was admiring how much his coverage of the war reflected the style of Ernest Hemingway's coverage of WWII. Michael Kelly's writing on the Iraq war was unsurpassed.

His Fisking of Joschka Fischer a couple of months ago was priceless, btw.

I feel like I lost a brother this morning. He was one of the few in the mainstream press who emerged from the last five years with his integrity and credibility intact. He did journalism proud. God, I will miss him.

This is my all-time favorite Michael Kelly column.

"I Believe"

I meant BAH as in I just feel awful. I looked forward to reading him every week. He was the best thing about the POST

Damn. He was special.

Kelly was an awesome reporter. This is awful. Billy, you're right, that column was great.

I echo your all of your comments. I'm not a WP reader, but I faithfully read Atlantic Monthly. I am a great admirer of his work.

This is a blow to great journalism.

Michael Kelly was a rare bird, a reliable by-line, and one of the good guys. RIP.

RIP.

I just got my May 2003 issue of the Atlantic in the mail (Cover story: "The Fall of the House of Saud"). Kelley's opening editorial touches on the "phony peace" that we've been under the past few years. It is typical Kelley, and it breaks my heart that it's the last one we'll get from him.

An archive of his Washington Post columns of the past two years sits here.

I am ashamed to say I did not even know who he was until last year I hit on an article by him. (It coined the term 'reactionary left' for those who in the name of 'progressive' causes side with reactionary forces like Islamofascism and antiscience movements.)

This was a Journalist with a capital J. I will sorely miss his writing. May his memory be blessed.

A great tragedy and a huge loss. My condolences to the Kelly family.

Now Rush Limbaugh is eulogizing him. Rush, shut up for a minute.

Right out of our hides.

This is just horrible. I make a point to read Kelly as part of my standard pundit rotation, this really hits home.

I was stunned when I heard the news. It was like loosing a friend that I had come to depend on for clear-eyed views that helped my own thinking.

My heart goes out to his wife and his two boys who now will only know him through his writings and through his friends

A fine journalist whose voice will be missed. The bell tolls for all of us.

Last night I sat down to read the latest copy of Atlantic Monthly, skimmed most of it and commented to my wife as I do every month that "I LOVE THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY". I wondered aloud why he was going to IRAQ and I told her that working there "would be my dream job".

Michael Kelly has left a tremendous legacy.

It is very difficult to think of the loss of any of our soldiers or Marines in Iraq and of the pain of war that the citizens of that country are experiencing. Michael Kelly's death affects us in the same way (we are diminished by each loss), but also very personally. I believe that I have read every one of his columns going back about 4 or 5 years and I feel as if I have lost a close friend (even though I never met him). My thoughts and prayers go out to his wife and family, about whom it was clear he felt great love and devotion.

He was one of my favorite journalists. He could express my thoughts perfectly. May God bless him and his family.

I became aquainted with Mr. Kelly through his weekly conversation with Hugh Hewitt. I found him to be bright, insightful, and humorous. I will deeply miss him.My condolances to his family.

What a heartbreaking loss. Michael Kelly made The New Republic worth reading, returned The Atlantic to greatness, and raised journalistic and editing standards. His weekly reports on Hugh Hewitt's radio program were superb. I encourage all to read Peggy Noonan's piece on Kelly. Here is one quote.

"I think that when excellence enters the world--when an individual brings his excellence into the world--it is like a deep love being born between two people for the first time. It goes into the world and adds to the sum total of good in it. It inspires, and is moving in a way that cannot always be explained or understood. It adds to."

A great voice was silenced before his time.

Weird.

I was watching MSNBC with the sound off this morning when David Bloom came on. Two weeks ago, Bloom was widely shown standing up in the turret of a tank belonging to the 3rd Infantry, hair blowing back, shades on, no helmet! looking like a young guy on his way to spring break....

...but this morning he looked...horrible. He looked shell-shocked, his eyes had a glassy terrified look, his hands clutching the air as he spoke to the anchor in New Jersey. His hair was a mess and his skin was dark and blotchy.

I stopped and watched him for a moment, transfixed. "War certainly is hell for David Bloom," I thought.

Then, not an hour later, I heard Kelly, also with the 3rd Infantry, was dead.

I guess it shook Bloom up pretty bad.

Michael Kelly was clearly among the two or three finest columnists in America. His lucid writing was only exceeded by his brilliance, his unwillingness to put up with cant, and his journalistic courage. The latter was not only exemplified by the fact that he wanted to cover this war close up -- as he did in the first Gulf War -- but in his columns, where he took on sanctimonious sacred cows that other mainstream columnists refused to grapple with. Try to find his column in the WP on pacifism and the way pacifists refuse to confront evil but let others do it for them while they remain "pure" in their self-righteousness. It is the best thing on the subject since George Orwell, who in may ways Kelly reminded me of.

His loss is a huge one -- for America and for journalism.

"It can be hard to find the truth, but we are blessed with many who let their conscience be our guides."

-Michael Kelly

Pure Kelly.

In an ironic twist of fate Kelly was charging through the Iraqi desert along side the Four Horsemen when Death turned and looked at him....not safely behind the editorial desk. Witnessing history not disspassionately dissecting it from afar. Bravo.

Michael Kelly will be sorely missed.

Peter Beinart at The New Republic writes:

"Those who knew Mike through his writing and editing witnessed his extraordinary reporting skill, his mastery of language, and his passionate belief in the possibility and necessity of honor, even in politics ... It was through his courageous, eloquent reporting that this magazine came to understand the importance, for America and the world, of a free Iraq at peace with its neighbors."

And Jonathan Chait:

"His readers know that they've lost one of the greatest war reporters in the history of American journalism."

Ave et Vale, Mr. Kelly.

(I wrote a longer farewell at: http://www.livejournal.com/users/selenite/4481.html)

What a huge loss this is. I would read Michael Kelly's columns religiously and started to pick up the The Atlantic Monthly that he revitalized. Kelly will be sorely missed -- he certainly made a big impact on me.

Mike Kelly - when I went for my very first job interview, I told the managing editor that I aspired to become a journalist. Said he , "no young man, you mean newspaperman."

That's what Mike Kelly was. A newspaperman. Right in the trenches. Not hiding behind a computer ,but with the men. God Bless

I knew him slightly from a few political campaigns and Washington issue fights over the years and respected the grace and strength his writing. A sad loss for journalism.

May his family find the grace to know his work meant so much to so many and that although we can hardly imagine the scope of their loss, we share it in some small way.

After reading Michael Kelly's columns consistently now for several years, I feel like I have just lost a close friend. Each week, I looked forward to his piercing insight and his flair with a keyboard. His death is a tremendous loss for American journalism, and a profound personal loss to me.

I hope his friends and family have the opportunity to see the wonderful things being said of him in these comments. Maybe Michele and Alan could email them to the WaPo, or, if that's not possible, simply print these out and send them via snail mail.

I admired Kelly for his passion and his use of language. Even when we disagreed he often made me think.

I was hurt today to read in IndyMedia that Michael Kelly's death was announced this way:

WP Nazi columnist bites the Iraqi dust

One of the commenters on his death has this to say:

When someone beats the propaganda drum constantly for the Bush administration's vicious and illegal military adventure into a sovereign country and kill its people and occupy its land, there will be no tear shed when that person is killed in a war that he or she trumpeted from the very start. Kelly was a propagandist for U.S. terror with few rivals in U.S. newspapers. Because of people like him, the U.S. war machine can kill as many non-Americans as it wants without Americans caring one cent.

Truly repulsive, no matter what place on the political spectrum you find yourself on.

The news today hit me surprisingly hard. I didn't know him.

But I was magnetically drawn to his byline in the Post. In part, because of what he said. More powerfully, because of his extraordinary skill with the English language.

I never dreamt I could feel a sense of pervasive grief because a journalist was lost. But I do.

Respectfully, Doug Jordan

So Godspeed Michael, you are a brave soul, an intrepid journalist, a courageous American. And you had style, grace and guts. Son of Thomas and Margaruite, father of Jack and Tom, husband of Maddy...and a member of my own extended family...you made us all proud. We won't forget you...you're in our hearts, laddy. Wind at your back, sun on your face...you're home now.

As for Indymedia...how much more bad publicity can they withstand before alienating even the party faithful? How many times recently have they scarred themselves with such hysterical remarks? How far left can they go...this is becoming a disgrace, a Stalinist fringe group that all liberals must renounce. They've hijacked the party and are intent on committing political suicide. And the left wonders why people are jumping ship? This kind of 'nazi' name-calling has turned off even the left. The left has contempt for America and for ordinary Americans; they want to tell them what to believe. And the American public isn't being fooled; the left always blames their losses in the polls and in the voting booth on how dumb Americans are, how they've been fooled by patriotic propagandists. When the public agrees with them, suddenly this 'dumb' audience gains immeasurable IQ points. Dennis Miller has mocked this 'nazi' accusation that the left hangs on anyone except dictators...as Miller noted, 'At these anti-war rallies, Bush is called a nazi, Blair is called a nazi, everyone is called a nazi...everyone but Saddam. He's the guy killing people by pushing them through a shredder, but he's the only one who's not a nazi!" The peels of laughter last night--the loudest anyone on the NBC staff has ever heard an 'unprompted' Burbank audience--accompanied Dennis Miller's hilarious evisceration of the anti-war left. Even Leno abandoned his pretense of non-partisanship and howled along with the audience. No one can remember Jay so animated and genuine. And this was People's Republic of California, USA.

Michael Kelley was one of the real good guys. His death is a terrible loss, not only for his family and friends, but for those of us who depended on him to explain things just right. I read all his columns and subscribed to the Atlantic because he made it so damn interesting. I never met but I wish I had because I would have thanked him.

It looks like the site deleted my harsh post on Michael Kelly's death so I'll say it again (at a bit more length). Kelly was a right wing propagandist who, along with a lot of other bileous hacks of his generation, did a lot of damage to America. His death may be a tragedy to his family but it is no great loss to the country. I suppose these remarks will be deleted as well and anyone following what remains uncensored in this thread will think that everyone loved and respected Michael Kelly. Censorship of dissenting views to create a false history is, I suppose, a fitting memorial to Mr. Kelly's writing career.

I love America. Just the other day, I was watching satellite TV and I saw a picture of a little Iraqi girl with her face blown off by a U.S. cluster bomb. It's stuff like this that makes me proud of my military leadership.

The United States is such a great country because we are willing to blow up little children to impose peace and democracy. Blood and guts everywhere, a tribute to our great democracy, our new Empire, our God who is the light that never goes out.

By the way, did everyone get their tax rebate checks in the mail? I'm spending mine on a blow up picture of little Iraqi children with their limbs blown off by cluster bombs. I'll keep it on a mantle next to my autographed picture of Ronald Reagan. He was a fucking hot hunk of meat.