Word: lippmanns
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Calling Walter Lippmann the last of the great political columnists is an implied rebuke to his successors, suggesting that they don't make them like that any more. Well, they don't. A man not afraid to be caught reasoning in print, Lippmann intellectually dominated the editorial pages of American newspapers for a half-century. On-the-other-hands were not for him: wrong he might sometimes be, but rarely uncertain...
Perhaps today's columnists lack Lippmann's talent and intellectual resources, but there is another reason why they cannot command Lippmann's prestige. This becomes evident in a reading of Ronald Steel's fine new biography, Walter Lippmann and the American Century. A columnist today couldn't carry on in the way Lippmann did, participating in all sorts of political maneuvers and policy decisions. The times demand more standoffish behavior from a columnist if he is to be trusted as an observer identified with the public's side...
...Lippmann's first major participation in events cannot be faulted: he contributed to the shaping of Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points. But Lippmann never did have a rigid belief in journalistic celibacy. In the nine years that he was the influential editor of Pulitzer's New York World, he promoted friends for office, plotted strategies, intrigued behind the scenes, all unbeknownst to his readers. When Al Smith ran for President in 1928, Lippmann commuted to Albany in the Governor's private railway car to coach him on foreign policy, advise him on strategy, help write...
...austere public moralist was capable of some extremely fallible private behavior, and his biographer does not back away from such lapses. Lippmann urged President Wilson to begin military conscription, then worked hard to make sure that he would not have to serve himself. "What I want to do is to devote all my time to studying and speculating," he wrote a friend in the office of the Secretary of War. He also appealed for exemption on the ground that "my father is dying"; Jacob Lippmann. a clothing manufacturer, lived ten years longer. In his 40s Lippmann had an affair with...
These flaws diminish the Lippmann myth but reveal the whole man. Above the feet of clay, an undeniably awesome figure arose. In his 70s, Lippmann courageously opposed L.B.J.'s escalation of the war in Viet Nam; he endured abuse from the White House, snubs from many of his friends and malicious suggestions that he was turning senile. After a lifetime of enjoying an insider's access to the powerful, he became an outsider on a matter of principle, an old stoic practicing what he had always preached. His life was inspiring. His biography is that, and more: required...