Things Worth Fighting for: Collected Writings (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Do not blame it on the bossa nova..." (more)
Key Phrases: fusion paranoia, pesh merga, phony peace, White House, Bill Clinton, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Atlantic Monthly editor Kelly, who covered Operation Desert Storm in 1991, Arafat's return to Gaza in 1994, and Bosnia in 1995, was killed in the Iraq war in April 2003. Although he'd considered himself a dove in the Vietnam years, "I am certainly now a hawk," he declared in 2002, his war coverage having convinced him "of the moral imperative, sometimes, for war." "There are things worth dying for, and killing for," as "every twelve-year-old" in Bosnia already knows. While Kelly's war reportage dominates this collection of his columns (mostly published in theWashington Post, the New Yorker and the New Republic in the 1990s), the volume also covers domestic culture and politics. Kelly's signature format was the character (or lack of character) sketch, where he'd reduce larger-than-life politicians to a decidedly human scale. Jesse Jackson "jets around the world as secretary of his own state of mind." Ross Perot was America's "first fusion-paranoia candidate for the presidency." When Bob Dole makes a speech, his phrases interrupt each other "like a call-waiting system gone awry." Beyond mere Beltway-insider cleverness, Kelly argued for a return to core American values like courage, honesty and love of country. We can't go back to being "square"-it's quite as impossible as "revirginizing"-but being patriotic and conservative could be cool again, Kelly suggests. 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.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Kelly, the award-winning journalist who was killed in 2001 while on assignment in Iraq for the Atlantic Monthly and the Washington Post, compiled an incredible body of work that reflected on American life from the mundane to the monumental. This collection, with a foreword from Ted Koppel, offers a sampling of Kelly's blistering wit and penetrating observations. Topics focus on American life, including the Catholic Church's cover-up of child abuse by priests; social stylings back and forth between square and cool culture; the game of politics that seems less about objective realty than virtual reality, including portraits of Ted Kennedy and Ross Perot (with a separate section devoted exclusively to Bill Clinton and troubling questions about his administration); the perils and absurdities of covering war; and Kelly's own life as a husband and father. An epilogue includes e-mails from Kelly to friends, family, and colleagues that evoke the personality of the man, his zest for his work, and his belief that all of us are in search of things worth fighting for. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The (March 25, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594200122
• ISBN-13: 978-1594200120
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #894,786 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fitting memorial, March 29, 2004

By	A. L. Saylor (Elizabethtown, PA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Michael Kelly spared no words, not even "fighting words," when he was writing with that righteous fervor about something he saw that was wrong. I so looked forward to Wednesdays when his column would run in the Washington Post, with a perspective that was fresh and articulate, and which skewered the "political correctness" and conventional wisdom which surround us.

His book about the 1st US/Iraq war, Martyr's Day, of which there are excerpts here, is unbeatable journalism which does not really age with time. Michael supported the 2nd US/Iraq war, and in fact his life ended while he was there covering it. But another wonderful aspect of his writing was that eternity was implicit between the lines, and would peak out when he wrote about his family, or the vignettes he could capture so naturally and effectively. And for me, the eternal was also present even when he was very down to earth, for example writing about something like the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, because he would unhesitatingly remind us that there is right and wrong in this world of ours. His work well justifies publishing this collection.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Journalist-A Profound Loss !, July 12, 2004

By	dougrhon "dougrhon" - See all my reviews

I have been a fan of Michael Kelly since I first discovered him in the pages of the New Republic back in the early nineties. He was that rarest of pundit/journalists. He was a man profoundly interested in truth and profoundly disgusted by modern ?spin.? Although a moderate liberal by birthright and inclination, Kelly found himself moving further and further from the reservation as the Clinton years proceeded. Kelly eventually was fired as editor of the New Republic for being too harsh on the Clinton administration. He then found his way to a regular syndicated column in the Washington Post and a job as editor in chief of the Atlantic, which he turned around completely. He became an embedded reporter during the Iraq war and as most know was tragically killed when his jeep came under fire and crashed on the way to Bagdhad. He was forty seven and left a wife and two young sons.

We will never read the book he would have written about the war. I have no doubt it would have given us the real story, unvarnished and without an agenda. Because that?s what Kelly was about. His loss is not just a tragedy for his family, it is a national tragedy because a vital voice has been lost at a crucial time in American history. A reading of this brilliant collection of Kelly?s writings will attest to just how great the loss is. This book is a collection of Mike?s writings from 1990 through his death in 2003. The book is organized, not chronologically but by section. There is a section on ?Visions of America? in which Kelly?s columns and articles on American culture in the nineties is collected. These writings display the wit and satire for which he was well known. In sections on politics and the ?Age of Clinton? Kelly skewers the emptiness of ?spin? politics, when elections become nothing more than winning a game and where image and perception are more important than substance. His more lengthy personality profiles are brilliant examples of the genre and reading his profiles of Jesse Jackson in middle age, Ross Perot, Louis Farrakhan, Hillary Clinton and many others will bring back memories of a time that seems long distant now. His descriptions of the results of Sadaam?s tyranny against Kuwait will churn the stomach more than a decade later. His account of the first Gulf War brings home the reality of modern combat brilliantly. He also wrote bemusedly, in a section on family, about the world of his toddler and pre-school sons who he obviously loved dearly.

It is in his post 9/11/01 writings, however, that Mike really found his voice. As the stark reality of the struggle we face was brought home, Kelly remembered, less than fondly, the profound emptiness of the Clinton age, and looked forward to a time of newly found resolve. I am sure he would be horrified at the breakdown of the national consensus, along party lines. As the argument began for action against Iraq, Kelly?s most eloquent essay, ?Immorality on the March?, demonstrates the profound immorality of the protesters who would doom the Iraqi people and the World to a permanent Hussein tyranny. In ?Who Would Choose Tyranny? he reveals the absurdity of the argument that Iraqi?s would choose the jackboot of Sadaam to liberation by America.

The final section has some columns Mike filed during the early days of the war and personal E-Mails to his family and friends sent from Kuwait just before he left to meet his destiny with the Third Infantry Division. Even in these simple E-Mails, Mike?s profound skill with words is obvious. I know if Michael Kelly were alive today, no journalist would be better situated to write on the war?s justification and in eloquent support of the larger war on terror. No one would be better able to ridicule the fools on the left, the Michael Moore?s who spout absurdities and hurt our morale and resolve. Most importantly, no one would better shame the politicians and pundits who condemn the Bush administration without offering alternatives, who place electoral expediency over the national interest. Mike fought this his whole career. He would not refrain from criticism where such criticism is warranted but he would be believable, because he would place it in the context of the larger events that shape the direction of the world. No one did it better than him. Please buy this book, not only as a way of supporting Michael Kelly?s young family but because it represents the final legacy of a career cut tragically short. I am no fan of Maureen Dowd but she is absolutely correct in this assessment of Michael Kelly ?Michael died for two things he believed in: journalism and ridding the world of jackboots.? It will be small comfort to his beloved wife, children and parents but it may be of some consolation to fans of his writing.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well worth reading, May 27, 2004

By	Galen K. Valentine "gallaine" (Fort Worth, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Michael Kelly, Things Worth Fighting For: Collected Writings, is a compilation of works written by Kelly over a period of about fifteen years. I had not read any of his columns or essays before reading this book and, indeed, barely paid much attention to the announcement of his death covering the Iraq War as an embedded journalist. That was to my own detriment, as I think, after having devoured these essays, I would have enjoyed following his witty, sometimes graphic, occasionally grim, and always insightful writing.

The book is divided into sections generally covering periods such as the Clinton Administration, the Gulf War, the Palestine/Israel peace accords, the War on Terror and the Iraq War. There are also pieces on culture and society (including some short biographical works on Jesse Jackson and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley Jr.), and even some emails he sent to his family while in Iraq. Publication date and original source for each essay and column are at the end of the book ? I would rather that that information been included in the headings for each. There are enough of his writings collected in the book to get a sense of the man and even some hints of the evolution of his thoughts and attitudes. His writing style is fluid and succinct. I could just barely stop reading the book when it was time to go to sleep each night.

The most poignant, and graphic, of his writings included in this book are those covering the Gulf War. He started it having never seen the human and material costs of war first-hand and ended it believing that there truly are things worth fighting, and dying, for. Kelly describes the torture and murder that the Iraqi regime visited on Kuwaiti civilians sparingly but with enough detail that you are left wondering how such evil could have been allowed to survive the war without proper punishment. When reading his coverage of the Iraq War it is apparent that his experiences during the Gulf War informed his reporting and his attitudes.

Kelly?s writings about the Clinton Administration are interesting for the analysis of Bill Clinton the man. Clinton?s childhood environment explains, though it doesn?t excuse, some of his behavior. His mother?s outlook, ?taught, ultimately, that people are not to be judged by their actions, but are endlessly free to reinvent themselves?.Since ?what-ifs? do not exist,, one needn?t worry that the promise of the moment cannot be met in the future?.[and] Since the ?irrelevant? past does not really exist either, the actions of the moment cease to exist once the moment becomes the past, and cannot be held against one later.? As with his war reporting, the selections included in the book give a sense of the change his viewpoint underwent during Clinton?s terms in office ? going from a somewhat neutral analytical tone to weariness from, what he felt was, the incessant lying and prevarication of a man who should be impeached.

This collection is particularly interesting to me because I lived through all of the events covered ? as a spectator perhaps, but lived through it nonetheless. In some sense, Kelly helped me to look back and articulate what it was I felt during Bill Clinton?s terms as President of the United States, the Persian Gulf War, and September 11th. This book is well worth the time spent reading it. I didn?t always agree with his assessments, but I found much to think about. And it is a fitting memorial for a journalist that I wish I had known during his lifetime.