In Memoriam

Other than Tim Pawlenty, Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman was the only one who never got the fleeting surge in poll numbers all of the other contenders received. He wasn’t a particularly exciting candidate even though he did some exciting things. He was a Motocross rider. He liked to play rock music. And he was the other Mormon in the race, which was kind of cool. And then, of course, there were those press darling daughters.

Huntsman suspended his campaign on Monday and immediately endorsed Mitt Romney for the nomination. Though he’s out of the race, his campaign left a (mostly) lasting impression among the Washington press corps. Some opened up to FBDC and shared their favorite memories of his failed candidacy.

Reuters‘ Sam Youngman– “The way he smelled like teen spirit.”

The Daily Caller‘s Jeff Poor– “The easy answer is ‘his daughters.’  But I think I’m going to miss waking up to Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski every morning telling their viewers how wonderful he is and how dumb Republican voters are for not embracing him.”

Guns & Patriots‘ Neil McCabe– “Making snarky replies to his daughters’ insipid Tweets.” McCabe is referring, of course, to Huntsman’s daughters’ joint Twitter account from which they made a sport out of tweeting about the campaign.

Host of SiriusXM’s P.O.T.U.S Julie Mason– “Jon Huntsman was campaigning? Totally missed it”

Politico‘s Patrick Gavin– “The opportunity to have the first Eagle Scout in the Oval Office since Gerald Ford. Policymakers should also have to earn merit badges.”

WaPo‘s Aaron Blake– “He taught me so much about [the late musician] Captain Beefheart and riding motorcycles through the desert. I can never truly repay him.” (Beefheart pictured at right.)

Human Events‘ Tony Lee– “What I will miss: His decency and authenticity. What I won’t miss: His attempts to be hip and snarky. And H-Jams.” For anyone who doesn’t know “H-Jams” were daily songs Huntsman’s press secretary would send out to reporters in email briefings.

RIP Huntsman campaign. I’d say we barely knew you but I think we did.

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.

While many reporters offered their personal thoughts and feelings about Vanity Fair‘s Christopher Hitchens after his death, WaPo‘s Gene Weingarten took a few moments this week during a web chat largely on fecal humor to share his feelings through poetry. A reader wrote in and asked if he had any commentary on Hitchens’ death and his thoughts about him as a writer. He replied, “As soon as I learned of Hitchens’s death, I twote this”:

Christopher Hitchens ceases to be –
A remarkable life he led
He isn’t in heaven; he isn’t in hell,
He is simply, emphatically, dead.

TWT Editorial Page Editor Brett Decker sent an email to staff this morning telling them, among other things, to pray for Tony Blankley and his family.

Subject: Tony Blankley, RIP

Tony died this morning after a long, painful struggle with cancer.

He was a great champion of The Washington Times and the best friend our opinion pages had. He is one of those rare irreplaceables, especially to me.

His wife Lynda told me today that Tony was so proud of the work all of you do and that he said on Friday how the section was the best it’s ever been.

Please pray for Tony and his family.

Brett

Various news outlets are reporting the sad news that Ex-TWT Editorial Page Editor Tony Blankley died over the weekend. He had stomach cancer. He was 63. He is survived by his wife, Dr. Lynda Davis, and three children.

TWT wrote that Blankley leaves “a legacy of significant analysis that bridged politics and culture with finesse, optimism and a sense of history.”

Blankley wore a variety of hats around Washington. He was Executive V.P. of Edelman public relations and a syndicated columnist and commentator for CNN, NPR and NBC. He was also GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich‘s former press secretary.

An excerpt from TWT:

Born in London, Mr. Blankley became a naturalized American citizen after his parents moved to California after World War II. As a child, he acted in such television shows as “Lassie,”“Highway Patrol” and “Make Room for Daddy,” and appeared in movies with such stars as Humphrey Bogart and Rod Steiger. He met Ronald Reagan at a 1950s-era USO performance and later volunteered to work on all of Reagan’s campaigns for governor and president.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) ended her presidential campaign Wednesday morning following a dismal finish in the Iowa Caucuses. Countless journalists will miss seeing her throughout the rest of the primary. She was fun, feisty and fabulous, if at times factually challenged — she did confuse John Wayne for John Wayne Gacey — but who cares? It was part of her charm. Still, her memory lives on.

We posed the question to Washington journalists — what will you miss most about covering Bachmann? Here’s what they had to say.

Chris Geidner, Metro Weekly‘s senior political writer, told FBDC in an email he appreciated the national discussion Michele and her husband Marcus raised concerning his work with a Christian clinic, which reportedly practices reparative therapy for gays. As for a report from WaPo Thursday speculating that Michele may retire from the House, Geidner said, “We’ll have to wait and see (her on Fox News).”

And WaPo‘s Aaron Blake, who hails from Minnesota remarked, “Hearing that lovely Minnesota accent, dontcha know. Now I’ll have to watch ‘Fargo’ or worse, call my relatives, to revisit my roots.”

TWT columnist Emily Miller pointed us to a piece she wrote Wednesday: “It’s certainly a relief that the debate stage will be less crowded,” she wrote, “but it’s worth noting what has been lost: the Tea Party’s highest-profile opponent of Obamacare.”

In late December, Bachmann ran a campaign blitz through Iowa, stopping in each of the state’s 99 counties within 11 days. Human Events‘ Tony Lee told us he’ll miss that energy. “Sometimes, I could not help but wonder if she had more body doubles than children when looking at her schedule of events,” he said.

But Bachmann’s flamboyant doggy sunglasses shopping hubby may be missed just as much as the candidate. “Marcus.” That’s the only word The Daily Caller‘s Alex Pappas responded with when we asked what he’d miss most about Bachmann’s campaign.

Pappas’ colleague Jeff Poor said he’ll miss watching MSNBC’s Chris Matthews‘ analysis of Bachmann now that she’s out of the race. “It was like a boy pulling a girl’s pigtails, but instead with an overweight aging male,” said Poor.

Sean Bugg, also of Metro Weekly, was hoping Marcus could bring that sense of style to the White House. “What I’ll miss most is Marcus, especially now that we know what his eye for accessorizing would have brought to the White House. It would have been just like another Jackie Kennedy,” he said.

RCP‘s Erin McPike: “Eyelashes?”

Agence France-Press‘ Olivier Knox: “She is truly one of the most impressive ‘retail’ politicians I’ve ever seen, who worked to build a rapport with every voter at her meet-and-greet events in Iowa. Also? The Christmas carols she played from her bus’s loud speakers.”

Townhall.com and BigGov Columnist Derek Hunter: “Her earnest delivery of every line, her Biden-like verbal flubs, and Marcus, sweet, sweet Marcus. But what I will miss most is the staring contest she had with the nation during every debate… Those eyes were hungry, and the only meal that could satiate that hunger was the White House. Now those eyes will be forever hungry, forever yearning.”

The Hill‘s Alex Bolton: “I’ll miss all the traffic she drives to The Hill’s website, which keeps my editors in a good mood.”

Anne Schroeder Mullins, media consultant and formerly with Politico: “Won’t we all miss Marcus the most?”

TPM‘s Evan McMorris-Santoro: “Who’s gonna say ‘Anderson’ now?!” (Santoro is referring to the countless times Bachmann tried grabbing the attention of CNN’s Anderson Cooper during a GOP debate back in October.)

Julie Mason, host of SiriusXM’s P.O.T.U.S: “I will dearly miss her soothing, mellifluous elocutions — like a soft, wet ear-kiss.”

TWT‘s Anneke Green: “The shot at having a First Gentleman.”

RIP for now, Bachmann campaign. Gone but not forgotten.

With the passing of Vanity Fair Contributing Editor Christopher Hitchens came an outpouring of personal stories by journalists about their relationship with their friend, their mentor, their hero and in one case, someone they had met just once. We rounded them up for you here with a poignant line or excerpt.

Portrait by Patrick Ryan.

The Weekly Standard/Daily Caller’s Matt Labash writes for Slate on traveling with Hitchens in Iraq. “After a protracted tussle in which Yacoub demanded Hitchens’ press badges, then after a cooling off in which he gave them back, then after a resumption of hostilities when Hitchens decided he didn’t want his Kuwaiti press badge back as the Kuwaitis were proving themselves the tramplers of liberty, Yacoub screamed that Hitchens would ‘leave Kuwait tonight!’ It’s pretty hard to get kicked out of a war. But Hitchens almost managed.”

David Frum writes about the man he couldn’t resist even after meeting him.

Washington Photographer Patrick Ryan once spent a morning smoking and drinking with the great writer. “He came over to greet me wearing socks and we immediately started talking as though we’d known each other for years.”

Townhall columnist and WMAL’s Derek Hunter writes about the pitfalls of Hitchens’ literal interpretation of everything. Like vodka for instance. Or toads. “Speaking of emails, I remember one that he signed, ‘Wishing you well in this toad-filled season.’ I thought, ‘What the Hell does that mean?’ I Googled it, I asked everyone. I found nothing to explain it. Finally I asked Grover if he knew what it meant, because I didn’t want to ask Hitchens and risk looking stupid. Grover looked up from his desk and said, ‘I don’t know. Maybe he’s just some place with a lot of toads.’”

WaPo syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker wrote about how she “devoured” Hitchens’ writing. Eventually she met him one day in the makeup room of NBC. “To say I was a friend of Hitchens would be an exaggeration, though I did enjoy the pleasure of his company on several occasions. But one needn’t have known a writer to mourn his passing or to feel profound sadness about all the silent days to come. No matter what the topic, I always wanted to know what Hitchens thought about it and, lucky for the world, he seemed always willing to end the suspense.”

Christopher Buckley‘s was fittingly among the first eulogies to emerge on Hitchens in The New Yorker. He starts out, “We were friends for more than thirty years, which is a long time but, now that he is gone, seems not nearly long enough.”

(A Sprinkling of Things We Think You Ought to Know…)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Get ready to jump back in debate mode after New Years- ABC’s Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos along with WMUR-TV anchor Josh McElveen are set to moderate the Republican presidential debate heading into the New Hampshire primary. It will be hosted at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., and begins at 9 a.m. on Jan. 7th. That’s a Saturday and we could think of only one thing we’d rather be doing than watching a debate: anything else.

RIP- The Committee to Protect Journalists released on Tuesday it’s annual list of journalists killed while working. Total number of reporters who died for doing their job this year: 43. CPJ’s site breaks down the data a number of ways, including by each journalist’s beat, medium and gender. The deadliest country for reporters this year was Pakistan. See the full report here.

Time will be whiter in the New  Year- The only black correspondent at TIME magazine, Steven Gray, is leaving the publication early next year. Gray, who worked in the Washington bureau, made the written announcement to his colleagues last Friday, according to the Maynard Institute. When questioned about a lack of diversity at Time, Ali Zelenko, vice president for communications, told the Institute, “There is diversity of all kinds at all levels of Time’s masthead. Maintaining and increasing that diversity remains one of our top staffing priorities.” In his announcement, Gray said, “[E]ditors were inclusive, and believed that someone with roots in the Lower Ninth Ward — far from Time Magazine’s traditional club — could help lead one of journalism’s most ambitious projects.”

One of Washington’s most revered writers, Vanity Fair‘s Christopher Hitchens, has died. He spent much of the week surrounded by family and loved ones at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Washington media outlets have been preparing for the news. Hitchens is survived by his wife, Carol Blue, and their daughter, Antonia, and his children from a previous marriage, Alexander and Sophia. He was 62.

Vanity Fair announced the news just before midnight Thursday:

It is with tremendous sadness that Vanity Fair announces the death of our contributing editor and dear friend Christopher Hitchens. Christopher died today from pneumonia, a complication of esophageal cancer, at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

“There will never be another like Christopher. A man of ferocious intellect, who was as vibrant on the page as he was at the bar,” said Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter. “Those who read him felt they knew him, and those who knew him were profoundly fortunate souls.”

Dec. 16, 2011: Goodbye from Christopher Buckley….read here.

See the CBS “60 Minutes” interview with Hitchens from earlier in the year.

June 4, 2010: The Original Announcement: “I have been advised by my physician that I must undergo a course of chemotherapy on my esophagus. This advice seems persuasive to me. I regret having had to cancel so many engagements at such short notice.” See here.

July 2008: Hitchens gets waterboarded at the request of VF Editor Graydon Carter. Watch here.

His final interview with Richard Dawkins.

Could Hitchens ever be a Christian? The Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg declares on Dec. 13, 2011, that Hitchens has not found God.

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We’re very sorry to report that Christopher Ma, Publisher of Express, and Washington Post Company Senior Vice President, died suddenly Wednesday. Management is reportedly shocked, as Ma was was in excellent health and an exercise fanatic who took good care of himself. He was a well-respected Don Graham confidant.

Developing….

UPDATE: Read his WaPo obituary here. The newspaper published the story Thursday evening.

Background on Ma from a newspaper bio: “Previously, Ma was senior vice president and executive editor of Washington Post Digital, where he played a major role in the early editorial development of washingtonpost.com and Newsweek.com. He joined The Washington Post Company from U.S. News & World Report, where he served in a variety of senior editorial positions, including deputy editor from 1989 to 1996. Prior to U.S. News, Ma was a correspondent in the Washington bureau of Newsweek magazine, covering foreign affairs and economics. A lawyer by training, he is the co-author of two books: Teleshock (1985) and several editions of The Practical Guide to Practically Everything (1996-1998). A resident of Washington, DC, he serves as a director of Adharmonics and the Interactive Advertising Bureau, and is a trustee of the Sidwell Friends School and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.”

Ma graduated from Harvard, where he received the Michael Clark Rockefeller Traveling Fellowship. He earned his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley.

Our deepest condolences to Roll Call‘s Shira Toeplitz, who lost her father this week. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that Gideon Toeplitz died Sunday night in his sleep in Israel. He was born in Tel Aviv. He was 66.

Toeplitz ran the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra from 1987 to 2003. During his employment, he signed on Marvin Hamlisch as conductor. Music was in his blood. His father, Uri, was a principle flutist in the Israeli Philharmonic. He, too, played flute and was skilled enough to substitute for his father. His godfather was pianist Rudolph Serkin.

While the exact cause of Toeplitz’s death is unknown, the obituary reports that he had Diabetes as well as a benign brain tumor in 2007. During his hospital stay he contracted a staph infection and fell into a coma. He recovered, however, and returned to attending orchestra concerts.

Remarks from and about Toeplitz’s daughters were added to the newspaper’s blog with the reporter profusely apologizing that they’d been trimmed from the obituary. See the remarks after the jump…

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