An entertaining and mostly admiring life of the legendary columnist.
Biography of a significant voice in 20th-century journalism.
When newspapers were the primary source of news, nearly everyone read Drew Pearson (1897-1969), whose daily column and weekly radio broadcasts expressed strong opinions and revealed government secrets. Though they were often scurrilous and occasionally wrong, they were never ignored. Recent historians have been less than kind, but Ritchie, historian emeritus of the U.S. Senate, draws a more favorable portrait than any during Pearson’s lifetime and brings to life one of the golden ages of investigative journalism. The bestseller Washington-Merry-Go-Round, a spicy political exposé written by Pearson and a colleague, appeared in 1931, and both veteran reporters were fired. Already aggressive self-promoters, they sold the idea of a daily column, which debuted in 1932 as “a mix of important news, amusing events, brisk style, realistic reporting, and crusading spirit.” Before long, the “Washington-Merry-Go-Round” column was a massive success. Until Pearson’s sudden death from a heart attack, the column’s combination of rumor, punditry, and scandal made him a household name. As the author notes, “the columnist took credit for the indictment, imprisonment, censure, and expulsion of a half dozen members of Congress, and the defeat of many more.” A small army of loyal leg men trolled for dirt, but Pearson’s massive audience proved irresistible to elected officials and even presidents, who leaked information even as they denounced him in public. Although generally liberal, he was despised by FDR, Truman, and Kennedy no less than Eisenhower and Nixon. The column continued with his younger collaborator, Jack Anderson, before fading at the end of the century with the rise of the internet. Readers may weary of Ritchie’s relentless stream of half-forgotten scandals, but they will be intrigued by his portrait of a time when muckrakers raked whatever muck they found. Today, with politics polarized into near immobility, commentators still attack government malfeasance, but hard evidence is increasingly irrelevant to their audience, to whom truth is whatever conforms to their ideology.
An entertaining and mostly admiring life of the legendary columnist.Pub Date: June 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-19-006758-8
Page Count: 456
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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