Eulogy

By Roger Rosenblatt

In the late 1970s, when I was writing columns and editorials for the Washington Post, MEG GREENFIELD had just been appointed editorial-page editor. She was canny enough to assign me only those editorials that required no thought or knowledge; when a golfer in Maryland murdered a goose that had interfered with his game, the piece was my meat. I wrote the goose editorial on deadline, and rushing past Meg's desk, I shouted, "What should I call this?" Without looking up, she shot back, "'Honk If You Think He's Guilty.'"

Next to James Thurber, she was probably the funniest serious person who ever lived. She was learned and scrupulous and very brave. She spent the past three years dying of cancer, yet so alive was she with ideas about world events, she made one forget the inevitable. Her small, frail body would shake with rage or laughter at Clinton and Monica, at Congress, at her beloved city of Washington, which she would ridicule in private and defend against outside assaults, as one would a foolish child.

Other than her friend and employer, Katharine Graham, she was the most powerful woman in Washington, yet she never flaunted her power or made a big deal of her womanhood. She simply took her work responsibly, with deep fair-mindedness. How she loved the news! Meg lived alone, and in a way the news was her family. Journalism offered a chance to apply something outside the news to the news. She was saved from the corrosive boredom that ruins other journalists by her knowledge of English literature. In her 50s she took up Greek.

She was the worst driver in North America (I'm being too limited). She had no sense of direction. Confronted about her inability to drive to an intended destination, Meg responded that she "went to places not accessible to normal people."

I should say so.

--Roger Rosenblatt