RIP Jack Anderson
All of us at TPMCafe are associated with Josh Marshall's intrepid effort to revive the tradition of muckraking journalism at a time when there's so much muck to rake. Accordingly, there should be some acknowledgement of the passing of one of the last century's great muckrakers, Jack Anderson.
The Washington Post's obit on Anderson provides all the relevant facts: his rise from the lowest ranks of journalism to the top, becoming Drew Pearson's protege and eventually his successor; his many scandal scoops; his Pulitzer for exposing Henry Kissinger's "tilt" towards Pakistan in its relations with India; his role in revealing the Iran-Contra scam, and so on.
The grand irony of Anderson's career is that other and younger journalists--especially Woodward and Bernstein--became celebrities for striking gold in the vein Anderson had been working for decades.
But in his time, Anderson was himself a bigfoot journalist and a fearful factor in Washington, ready at any moment to turn rumors into ruin.
And he had his own cult of minor celebrity, back in the day. I'll never forget that at the height of the Nixon scandals, you couldn't listen to a "progressive" radio station anywhere in the country without hearing Ed Sanders' tribute to the muckraker:
Jack Anderson is a friend of mine
I read his column in the Post every afternoon
Keep on truckin', Jack Anderson
Keep on truckin', take out the trash.
Since we're still trying to "take out the trash," we should take a moment to remember Anderson, with all his faults, as a man who never took official obfuscations and denials for an answer.
He was one of a kind. He accomplished so much, it is hard to think we will ever see his likes again. I am just happy to be witness to Josh and the staff carrying on his "muckraking" tradition here...
December 17, 2005 11:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
At his best Jack Anderson was very good. I remember him as one of the few mainstream journalists who would occasionally report on some aspects of the JFK assassination conspiracy without trying to demean the critics.
December 18, 2005 9:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
December 19, 2005 7:09 AM | Reply | Permalink