Tormentor of the Beast Dies With Honor

Dr. X posts this from the Cafe Presse:

"Art Buchwald...now there's a name I haven't heard since...

"Nixon had his tormentors - Pat Paulsen, Dick Tuck. But in a time when many serious people, and a majority of the American people, thought Nixon was a pretty good president, Buchwald lacerated him with intelligence and humor.

"He was a big star in his time, bigger than most of the people we talk about in this column. Even though he was nominally a humorist, other journalists liked and admired him. He managed to pull the best job there ever was - miscellany columnist, for the International Herald-Tribune, in Paris, in the 50s and early 60s.

"According to the Washington Post obituary,

He escorted Elvis to the Lido, strolled the boulevards with Satchmo and Ellington, gave tours of the paper's office near the Champs-Elysees to Humphrey Bogart, Danny Kaye, Fred Allen and Jane Russell. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor were "one of my favorite couples." Elizabeth Taylor and her then-husband Mike Todd tried to stiff him on a $4,000 restaurant tab. Thornton Wilder assured him that "the rich need you more than you need them." Lucky Luciano, the exiled gangster, took Buchwald to lunch in Naples, which led to a novel that he sold to his friend Stanley Donen as a possible movie for his other friends Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman.

"It would be natural to slack off a bit and just enjoy the party, but he did well enough to win a Pulitzer in 1982, and got on well enough with the French that the Embassy was throwing him a birthday party as recently as 2005.

"Art Buchwald lived well, and died cheerfully on the Vineyard, leaving a good joke behind at the end. Farewell sir, you go with our blessings, prayers, and various incantations from Star Trek and The Lord of the Rings which have special meaning to us."