It's Friday, Dec. 10, 2021, the day of the week when I reprise quotations intended to be uplifting or educational. Today's words of wisdom come from a gentle giant named Fred Hiatt, whose untimely death earlier this week left an indelible hole in the lives of his family, friends, and colleagues -- and a vacuum in American public discourse.
When I say "giant," I do not mean that in the literal sense. Although he held a commanding position as editor of the Washington Post's editorial page, Fred was physically unprepossessing: He was of average height and had a slim build and spoke softly. My friend David Von Drehle wrote that he was "the master of the strategic mumble." If Fred had something really important to say, he would actually whisper.
Yet, Fred Hiatt wrote and spoke with resonant passion, especially about the subjects most precious to him: The perpetuation of democracy at home and abroad and his abhorrence of human rights abuses. As Chuck Lane, another one of his writers, noted, "There was only one privileged category among those clamoring for Fred's time and attention: politically persecuted individuals and groups from every corner of the world."
George W. Bush-era Democrats criticized Fred for the Washington Post's editorial stance in support of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Republicans of a more recent vintage chafed at the Post's intense antipathy for Trumpism. Neither were imagined grievances. And while it's true that the Washington Post hasn't endorsed a Republican presidential candidate since Dwight Eisenhower, until Fred Hiatt's editorial board met Donald Trump, it had never pronounced the GOP nominee a "peril" whose election "would be dangerous for the nation and the world."
Yet, Fred actively sought out thoughtful columnists and commentators who could explain Trump's vast appeal to his readers. It was a challenge he and I discussed. Tributes to Fred have poured in from around the world this week, including from my own family. My father, Lou Cannon, a former Post colleague, paid Fred the ultimate compliment: He compared Fred to David Broder, the man author Timothy Crouse called "the high priest" of political journalism. "He was always gracious," my dad said, "and so modest, he reminded me of Broder."
Why Bring a Bonesaw to a Kidnapping, Your Highness?
That is a question the crown prince of Saudi Arabia should be asked at every opportunity. "Thank you for granting me an audience, Your Majesty," everyone should say. "Why bring a bonesaw to a kidnapping?"
President Trump should be similarly interrogated, along with the members of his team who so far seem eager to become accessories after the fact to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Given that the Saudis have reverted to a lie so preposterous that even their own chief prosecutor felt compelled to abandon it weeks ago, the president should be asked: Why are you abetting this crime?
Are we really okay, as a country, with an ally luring a journalist living in Northern Virginia into what should be a diplomatic sanctuary for the purpose of assassination and dismemberment -- and then baldly, brazenly, ludicrously lying about it? Fred Hiatt column, Nov. 18, 2018.
The Power of the Ballot
Corruption can be a scourge in democracies or dictatorships. But it is more likely to fester when people have no way to hold their rulers accountable. People die of hunger in North Korea because of Kim Jong Il, not infertile land; they are dying of cholera in Zimbabwe because of Robert Mugabe's misrule, and grants to improve the water supply won't help much as long as he remains. Institutions such as a free press and independent judiciary are…crucial -- but if you delay elections until dictators have allowed such institutions to emerge you will wait, in most countries, forever. Fred Hiatt column, Jan. 19, 2009
Shadow on the U.S. Beacon
The first victims of U.S. prison abuse at Abu Ghraib were Iraqis. But those who will pay a price also live in Libya and Hong Kong, Venezuela and Burma, and anywhere else human rights are in jeopardy.
Dictators forever have sought to deflect criticism by playing to anti-Americanism. The difference now is that the United States can hardly talk back. …They will say that slave-owning, Indian-eradicating, dictator-propping America was never anything but a fraudulent champion of human rights.
But if you could ask the dissidents and human rights champions who over the decades, in isolated prison cells and frozen work camps, have somehow gotten word that U.S. diplomats or presidents had not forgotten them; if you could ask the elected leader of Burma, who is still under house arrest; or the peasants who are being chased from their villages in western Sudan, or the democrats being slowly squashed in Hong Kong by the Communists in Beijing -- if you could ask any of them, you might get a different answer. They might tell you that the United States has never been perfect, has never done enough, has never been free of hypocrisy -- but also that if America cannot take up their cause, no one will. Fred Hiatt column, May 16, 2004
And those are our quotes of the week.
Carl M. Cannon is the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics. Reach him on Twitter @CarlCannon.
