James J. Kilpatrick, Conservative Voice in Print and on TV, Dies at 89

James J. Kilpatrick's in-your-face, conservative bickering with liberal commentator Shana Alexander three decades ago was famously parodied — and then copied for years to come on broadcast and cable channels. Even more lasting: his contributions as the nation's most widely syndicated political columnist and a dozen books on everything from politics and the U.S. Supreme Court to the use and abuse of the English language...more

I got to meet Kilpatrick once, briefly, when he was covering a Senate hearing. I'm not completely sure, but believe it was a hearing where Joseph Coors was nominated to be on the FCC, and during which Senator Lowell Weicker (a liberal Republican) famously asked Coors, "Are you now, or have you ever, been a member of the John Birch Society."


I remember Kilpatrick most because of his writing style, and his later columns titled "Covering Courts" where he wrote about the Supreme Court and other important court decisions.