Hail Mary: a newspaper columnist for the ages

Mary McGrory, my longtime colleague who died on April 21, could write rings around us all. But rather than take the compliment, she would immediately condemn the cliche at the heart of that sentence.

Yes, we'll miss her gift for dissecting whole personalities with a few perfect words. But because McGrory's writing dazzled, her fans often didn't notice that she assessed political reality with the cunning of the best Boston ward heeler. Because her principles were always clear, those who adored her views didn't always notice how skillfully she could fillet anyone on her own side who failed her standards of honesty, grace, and style. [Readers may recall her review of Commonweal Confronts the Century, November 19, 1999.]

McGrory once said that "every baby born in Massachusetts was born with a campaign manager's gene." That was certainly true of her. She spent all her life preparing for this year's presidential brawl. You look back at what she wrote about these guys, George Bush and John Kerry, and you mutter at God for depriving us of her judgment.

McGrory had a soft spot for Kerry because of his views on the Vietnam and Central American wars. But when Kerry faced off for reelection in 1996 against William Weld, she knew which one was the charmer.

"The Republican governor of Massachusetts is a whimsical man, and his people greatly enjoy him," she wrote. "He keeps a portrait of James Michael Curley, a roguish and reprehensible predecessor, over his desk.... He's a lot of fun. His opponent, incumbent Senator John F. Kerry, is not.... Weld, lanky, red-headed descendant of a signer, graduate of Harvard, Harvard Law, and Oxford, song-and-dance man extraordinaire, plays the Irish like a harp. He has noticed their weakness for entertaining politicians--Curley was a card--and he frequents their bars and sings their songs.... He is considered a regular guy, while Kerry, a decorated war veteran, is not."

Kerry's only hope? "In the month remaining, he has to persuade Massachusetts voters to turn their backs on the Brahmin charmer and come home to the Democrats. The governor may make them laugh, he will plead, but as a senator he will make them cry." Ward boss McGrory was right.

She would have no use for attacks on Kerry's Vietnam record. When Kerry first ran for the Senate in 1984, she noted that General George S. Patton III "came to Boston to blast former Vietnam War opponent Kerry for 'probably' causing 'some of my guys to get killed' by his dissidence."

McGrory would have none of this, but she expressed her view by citing the wisdom of a voter who encountered Kerry. "At a working-class fundraiser in Dorchester sponsored by Mayor Ray Flynn," she wrote, "a World War II veteran was beside himself about the general. 'Listen,' he said, grabbing the candidate's lapels. 'They don't give Purple Hearts for nothing. You know it and I know it.'" Case closed.

But woe to Democrats who betrayed her standards. Here is her fair and balanced description of the second debate between Bush and Al Gore in October, 2000. "A recovering showoff faced off with a recent graduate of a cram course in syntax and foreign policy.... Al Gore's latest reinvention of himself is by far his best, but George W. Bush has improved, too.... The question now is: Did Al Gore wait too long to change from his Boston self--the insufferable know-it-all? ... It is absurd that the vice president is fighting for his life against a governor who is almost bereft of information and experience." Oh, will we miss her.

She had her favorites, and was irrepressibly honest about saying so. Here's McGrory on February 10, 2000: "Haley Barbour, former National Republican Committee chairman and present George W. Bush backer, said on a television talk show that the press was 'slobberin' over John McCain.' He is quite right. We are guilty as charged."

And she was prepared to offend entire states. On February 20, 2000, she wrote: "People who complained that New Hampshire was no place for a presidential primary just haven't been to South Carolina. The flinty Granite State has its faults, but it looks like an island of enlightenment and tolerance compared with this capital of implacability, fierce fundamentalism, and dirty politics."

Political writers typically make one of two mistakes: They underestimate the role of ideas or they underestimate the role of personalities. Politics was very personal for Mary McGrory, but she always knew it was about things that mattered. That's why she mattered so much.

[c] 2004 Washington Post Writers Group

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