David Halberstam

Fawning and enjoyable are not mutually exclusive. Just a warning that anyone wanting a true biography should look elsewhere. Much more about Belichick--and, perhaps more important, his father--from a football perspective.

 

Was it necessarily related to the journalist/source relationship? Or was it more related to the fact these generals were lying to the public about the conditions in Vietnam to continue perpetrating a needless war that led to the death of thousands of innocent, young men?

People deserve-or don't deserve-respect because of their actions, not because of the stars on their uniform.

 

When he was almost at the peak of his career, he did a freelance piece for me for relatively modest dollars. Nevertheless, he was totally helpful, accommodating, pleasant. And he wrote an excellent piece for, relatively speaking, a rookie editor.

 

I've read "The Fifties" many times. I don't know how far you've gotten, but the chapters on the early Civil Rights era are super-strong.

 

No, it's a lack of common courtesy, no matter how great a writer he is.

That said, if I were teaching a college course on the 50s, I would use the book as a textbook.

 

Enjoy his books, but someone has to mention the Doonesbury line on how he likes his coffee: "Black. Totally black. Utterly without cream or sugar."

 

david is among the reporters/authors i most admire. i've learned so much reading every book he's written. i'm partial to 'the breaks of the game' 'cause those walton/blazer teams were shakepearean to me. oh, how i loved the year-and-a-half those blazers played perfect basketball, only to have it snapped like the bones in walton's foot... a greek tragedy. for lovers of pure, textbook basketball no longer in existence.

 

Hardly. It was a political act on a personal level. It was an act of deep moral outrage.

At the annual Fourth of July celebration at the ambassador’s residence that year, Harkins was stunned when David, scorning the hypocritical civility most of us were still willing to indulge in, refused to shake the general’s hand.


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/magazine/30lives-t.html

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2007/05/07/070507ta_talk_packer

Harkins on Halberstam:

http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/24/gen_harkins_explains_why_we_lost_the_vietnam_war_halberstam_was_jewish

 

The Vietnam aspect is what I was missing. I understand it, and I can't imagine what the country was like in those times. Still, one could argue that allowing a personal, political statement in that circumstance is damaging to one's objectivity.

 

I understand what you are saying here, but in my opinion -- and according to what I have been taught -- Journalists should not engage in political statements while working. (And if the only reason you are there is because you're a journalist, then you are working.)

I had the same issue, a different level, with Sen. Webb not shaking the president's hand.

But this is simply my opinion, and I will admit I am no David Halberstam.

 

This futile and off-base quest of "objectivity" is why the media has repeatedly failed us.