|
|
John McLaughlin AP |
Washington: John McLaughlin, a former Roman Catholic priest who became an aide to Richard M. Nixon in the White House and parlayed his fierce defence of the president into a television career as host of The McLaughlin Group, the long-running Sunday morning programme of combative political punditry, died Tuesday at his home in Washington. He was 89.
His death was announced on the programme’s Facebook page. Eleanor Clift, a longtime panellist on the show, wrote in The Daily Beast that he had been treated for prostate cancer for some time and that it had spread. McLaughlin had been absent from the show this last weekend for the first time in more than 34 years.
As creator, executive producer and host of The McLaughlin Group, which began in 1982, McLaughlin helped reinvent the political talk-show format by injecting unabashed partisanship and a dash of entertainment.
His programme, broadcast on select CBS and PBS stations, inspired a generation of pundits. His blustery persona became fodder for comedians, notably Dana Carvey on Saturday Night Live, even while policymakers tuned in for the political observations.
McLaughlin “proved that you could be provocative and an advocate and entertaining, and bring a larger audience to public affairs programming,” said Tammy Haddad, a former vice-president of political coverage for MSNBC.
“The early success of CNN,” Haddad noted, was based on its “political food fights” by the likes of Robert Novak and Pat Buchanan, both of whom were founding McLaughlin Group panelists.
Nixon’s speechwriter
McLaughlin was believed to be the first active Roman Catholic priest to run for the Senate. He lost by a wide margin to the incumbent Democrat, John O. Pastore.
McLaughlin went to Washington anyway, joining Nixon’s speechwriting team in 1971. As the Watergate crisis deepened, McLaughlin became one of the president’s most visible supporters. After Vice-President Gerald R. Ford succeeded Nixon in August 1974, McLaughlin’s position was abolished.
In 1975, McLaughlin successfully petitioned Pope Paul VI and was released from his vows.
That same year he married Ann Dore, his former Senate campaign manager. The couple divorced in 1992. In 1997 he married Cristina Vidal, the vice-president for operations of Oliver Productions, the company that produces The McLaughlin Report. That marriage also ended in divorce.
John Joseph McLaughlin was born in Providence on March 29, 1927. He was ordained a priest in 1947. There was no immediate word on survivors.
From its debut in 1982 The McLaughlin Group took on the flavour of a barroom debate. Regardless of the panelists’ political persuasions, McLaughlin, whose own politics leaned decidedly right, would often fire off questions and cut them off, shouting “Wronnnng!” His trademark signoff was a robust “Bye-bye!”
