Charley Reese, R.I.P.

By James Bovard

One of the nation’s best newspaper columnists passed away last week. Charley Reese was a beacon of light at the Orlando Sentinel from 1971 to 2001. He continued to write columns which were syndicated nationally through 2008, and his pieces provided readers with superb insights into the nature of the government and politics.

I never met him in person but he and I exchanged a few letters. He struck me as the incarnation of a thoughtful, considerate, Southern gentleman.

Here is a C-Span link to an interview that Brian Lamb conducted with Charley during the Bill Clinton impeachment circus.

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/WashingtonJournalFeature103


I especially appreciated Charley’s courage in labeling U.S. government abuses and foreign policy debacles. He had spent too many years dealing with hard facts to be swept away by the latest political mania. One of Charley’s classic columns has been bouncing around lately on the web and is reprinted below. (This version is from Snopes; other versions have floated around that included add-ins not written by Charley.)

Politicians, as I have often said, are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Read the rest here.