Things Worth Fighting for: Collected Writings

by Michael Kelly, Ted Koppel (Introduction)

A variety of political, international, and personal topics is covered in this collection of magazine and newspaper stories, articles, and columns by the notable journalist, killed in 2003 while covering the Iraq war, displaying his gift for getting to the heart of the matter through candor and wit in his writing. 25,000 first prinitng.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Collections, Politics

448 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

American journalist for The New York Times, a columnist for The Washington Post and The New Yorker, and a magazine editor for The New Republic, National Journal, and The Atlantic. He came to prominence through his reporting on the first Gulf War, and was well known for his political profiles and commentary, but suffered professional embarrassment for his role in the Stephen Glass scandal at The New Republic. Kelly was the first US journalist to be killed while covering the invasion of Iraq, in 2003. The Atlantic Media Company, owner of the publications for whom Kelly worked from 1997 to 2003, annually honors journalists in Kelly's name with the Michael Kelly Award. First awarded in 2003, it celebrates "the fearless pursuit and expression of truth". In 2003 the University of New Hampshire, Department of English, established the Michael Kelly Memorial Scholarship Fund, which awards a sophomore or junior student "who is passionate about journalism".

Reviews

[Katy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let me be upfront-- this book is a collection of columns written by my brother, Michael Kelly, and published after he died reporting on the war in Iraq. That said, the book is filled with marvelous essays. The one about walking with a 4 year-old will speak to anyone who has parented a child that age.

[David Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection reveals why Michael Kelly's death leaves such a void in journalism. He has no equal working today.

[Anita Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite book. Ever.

[Patrick McCoy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up Michael Kelly’s posthumous collection of writings, Things Worth Fighting For, because I was a fan of his writing when I subscribed to The Atlantic Monthly a couple of years ago. I was disappointed to learn what a self-righteous, puritanical curmudgeon he was. The book was mainly made up of profiles and commentaries, but there was also some war reporting. Arguably his best writing was the profiles of Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, and Richard Daley. But the problem of these was that he tended to be over reliant on personality/psychological profiles of his subjects. For him character is everything despite whatever they had achieved. Regan gets off the hook, but he doesn’t mention Kennedy’s accomplishments until halfway through the piece. Similarly he cannot stand Clinton, because he doesn’t trust him. But Bush Sr. and Regan, again, get off the hook despite the fact that they were embroiled in some of the most devious wrong doing ever at the white house, they were involved with the Iran-Contra Affair, which mirrors mainstream journalism and America’s amnesia about the past they prefer not to remember.

Kelly desperately wants to be part of America’s Greatest Generation that liberated the world from fascism, where everyone was clean cut, law abiding, country loving, God-fearing, married, responsible, and supportive of their government. Kelly’s conservative compassion will not admit that the government has ever acted out of self-interest, that there has ever been a reason to protest against authority, or that another America exist that is impoverished and at odds to succeed, because of inadequacies in the system.

Some of his most indulgent and sappy writing comes at the end of the book in the section on family and emails from the front. These little homage’s to his sons and family give no insight into anything other than his own happy family. He seems contemptuous of anyone who has not had a stable, happy family life as if it was their own fault and that they were a bunch of whiners, remember in Kelly’s rosy Voltairian view of America everyone is loved by their parents, gets three squares a day, and is tucked into to bed by loving parents every night before heading off to school seat belted in their SUV.

I am further put off by his “hawkish” patriotism. Even though I am more tolerant of the first Iraqi invasion, Kelly joins the equally disappointingly hawkish war apologist Christopher Hitchens in hyperbolic descriptions of the liberation of people living under unjust rule. He is selective about who these people are and never challenges the long range implications or costs of such actions, when he defends his actions as a “chicken hawk”(one that has never been to war, but advocates it). He seems to regret this (never having been to war) and is like an overeager boy scout reveling in his opportunity to become embedded in a division during the second Iraqi campaign, and it is there while playing soldier that he dies in an SUV accident. I’m sorry that he didn't live long enough to realize his folly.

[Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of Kelly’s short opinion columns for the Washington Post as well as his longer magazine pieces, there is something very good in virtually every one of them, some illuminating insight into a person or issue or a perfect turn of phrase. (From a column on the Bush-Gore debate: “Gore was so programmed, so artificial, that it seemed as if he had been put together with an Identikit, hurriedly and in the dark. His face, with its leaps from oaken repose to plastic animation, looked like the mirror of a soul that has been through one cosmetic surgery too many.”) Reading it now, five years after Kelly died in Iraq, is to realize how few good reporter/columnists there are who aren’t firmly on the Right or the Left.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every time I read one of the selections in this book, I feel an empty spot. His ability to explain the world simply has never been replaced. I wish he were here.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

great journalist and sad to be killed so young.

[Don Kilcullen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why Michael Kelly never won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary is absolutely beyond me. These essays form an extraordinary example of opinion writing at its finest. He neatly skewers the pomposity and hypocrisy of Washington’s political elites while also showing the humanity and capability of our men and women in uniform as well as the ordinary “working stiffs” in this country who almost never get their due.
The reason my review is limited to three (3) stars is not because of Kelly’s writing but because of the book’s editing. Including, for example, a “long form” journalistic profile (approximately 25 pages in length) of someone as obscure as CNN’s David Gergen is simply bad editorial judgement. Likewise, the series of E-Mails at the end of the book which Kelly sent to friends and family shortly before his tragic and untimely death during the invasion of Iraq just do not fit with an anthology of published essays/articles.
However, if you’re looking for examples of the best pieces of expository writing you could ever hope to find, you’ve come to the right book.

[Virginia Hume · Rating 5 out of 5]

Until he died, I read Michael Kelly every Wednesday in the Washington Post. He was so amazingly talented. And funny. And smart. Even when I disagreed with him, I was in awe of him. When I heard he'd died in Iraq (he was an embedded journalist), I was on the highway and had to pull my car over to the side of the road. It was such a blow to so many of us who read him and felt as if we knew him.

Practically speaking, the only reason I give this four stars is because there were some pieces in here that were not of great interest to me.

They've never properly filled the hole he left at the Post.

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

“We are in a war, and we will be in one for some time, and this war is being undertaken toward a great and daunting end … The goal here is not to knock off a few of terrorism’s foot soldiers. It is to put out of business terrorism’s masters, its networks, and its protectors …
“It is certainly possible that it will proceed badly, at least at times. It may appear, at times, that it will end badly. But we start out with a serious and large intent, facing an enemy that is likewise serious and likewise ambitious. If we remember this, if we stay serious and remember that the enemy, too, is serious, we will win. And it should not be hard to remember this.” -p.356