The Best and the Brightest was an incredible book that meticulously told the story of how Kennedy put together his dream cabinet, that blundered into the Vietnam War, and under Johnson continued that blundering. The Powers That Be examined the media in the US. These were huge books that gave both endless detail and an understanding of the big picture. Not an easy task. As this article shows Halberstam was still active, and he was killed in a car accident on the way to an interview on his next book about the Korean War. This isn't a bad time to go back and read The Best and the Brightest. What will be the name of the Bush era version of how we got into Iraq?
Let's remember Halberstam as a great journalist whose reporting contributed to ending a bad war.
And let's remember how quickly everything can change - one bad left turn in this case.
Monday, April 23, 2007
3 comments:
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Hi this is Josh. I just want to say it's funny how ppl from all over the world can be connected by a blog. Thanks for leaving the comment by the way.
ReplyDeleteI replied your comment and got a chance to check your blog.
Hello Steve, I always read Josh's blog and your comments was spot on. So i check out ur blog. Nice one.
ReplyDeleteUr info on books written by David Halberstam is informative...The only book i read written by him was the one on Michael Jordan "Playing for Keeps".
I was shock when i read the news on CNN...I think he is one of the great authors/writers on this time.
Hi Josh and Nightwing, thanks for dropping by. I only mentioned the books that had had a big impact on me, but you are right. He's written a bunch of books on sports too. But I think all of his books are really about human beings, power, and the bigger issues. War, the media, sports are just the backdrop.
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