Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

It would take someone like Murray Kempton to do justice to the Rowland “tragedy,” admittedly a much misused and overused term. Unfortunately, Mr. Kempton – ever the gentleman, friend to the lonely and crushed – died in 1997, and we shall not see his like again. Bill Buckley, whose like we shall not see again, said of Kempton   that he was a “socialist — a sworn enemy of all anti-Communist legislation, sworn friend of militant unions” also “the finest writer in the newspaper profession,” disposing of a “wit and irony and a compassion which is sometimes unruly.” Buckley, who had a genius for friendship, then added that Mr. Kempton was “a great artist and a great friend.” Innocence, of course, is the essence of tragedy, and we know after a trial and an appeal – soon to be followed by more appeals, until Mr. Rowland runs out of money, at which point all the lawyers will disappear – that Mr. Rowland is NOT innocent. Mr. Kempton would not have focused on the trial or the ap...