Jack Kelly Sunday (FINAL EDITION)

In today's Post-Gazette, Jack Kelly officially signs off:

I used to say that I was in a declining industry, but fortunately, I was declining faster than it is. I haven’t been so sure about that in recent years. Every day we publish is a great day.

But it’s turned out to be true. I’m retiring; this is my last column. The cancer I’ve been battling for a couple of years seems to be flaring up again. I need to devote more attention to it, and to Pam, who got me through the really hard times. (That sounds a bit too melodramatic. I’m in much better shape than when I was first diagnosed. Odds are I’ll live long enough to die of something else.)

Let me first say that I wish nothing by good things for Jack Kelly - and here's to hoping that last sentence is true.  Best of luck to you, Jack.  I really mean that - Cent'anni!

Jack spends the rest of the column thanking various people at the P-G, including two I've ridiculed myself (though never by name):

I want to thank editorial page editor John Allison and op-ed editor Greg Victor, who edited my columns before John did. They made them better. They’re great editors, even better people.

But ladies and gentlemen of the jury, if they changed Jack's columns for the better, (and let's assume they did) I'd love to see what he submitted in the first place.

Let's not forget that Jack Kelly wrote what Jack Kelly wrote.  Retirement aside, cancer aside, he still owns his history at the P-G.

For example Jack owns these two offensive columns on slavery:

• The most recent, from September 2015, sparked this response from the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation and this response from Very Smart Brothas.
• Then there was his earlier (by almost a generation) slavery column, deconstructed by me.

And this fact-phobic hit piece on Van Jones:

• My blogpost on the column itself.
• And then it's post-blogpost removal by the P-G.

Then there's his seemingly bottomless pool of Climate Science denials:

•  Like this one from 2005 where Jack missed the facts enough that this was the P-G's response

  This column is a corrected version. The following correction will appear in the July 5 print edition: "Jack Kelly's July 2 column conflated references to two different Wall Street Journal op-ed articles by MIT professor Richard Lindzen. The first quote from Dr. Lindzen was from a June 11, 2001, piece, but it was incorrectly identified as being published last week. The second Lindzen quote was correctly attributed to his commentary last week (June 26). In addition, the Kelly column referred to a National Academy of Sciences report on climate change and a quote from CNN reporter Michelle Mitchell; they were both from June 2001, not this year. The column should have addressed the NAS report on climate change released June 22, 2006.

• Or this one from 2014 where Jack repeats the "no warming since 1998" lie.
• Or this one (also from 2014) where he repeats the "no warming since 1998" lie.
• Or this one from 2013 where he says that since it's cold outside now, the planet hasn't been warming up for 150 years AND he repeats the "no warming since 1998" lie.

Then there's Jack's Benghazi mischief

• Where he draws a timeline of help that could only be achieved by someone with a time machine.
• Or this one where he misquotes Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.

Then Jack on torture (or "torture" if you so desire):

• Where he tries to wiggle out of the clear fact that waterboarding is torture.
• Or this one where he gives an admitted torturer some column space.

And Jack on (of all things) bedbugs and CFLs:

• Where Jack (among other things) blames the recent outbreak of bedbugs on the environmental movement that banned DDT - he missed the fact that by the time DDT was banned, bedbugs had already evolved out of being killed by DDT.

Then there's Jack's Sarah Palin fetish:

Well it's about time. Almost exactly a month after his favored party and his favored candidate for President lost, and lost badly, in what he called an electoral "landslide," and six weeks after both her disastrous debate with Vice-President-Elect Joe Biden and her equally disastrous interview with Katie Couric, Jack Kelly finally speaks out about Sarah Palin.

Guess what? In this week's column, he endorses her for President in 2012. 

Yep.  He did.

I guess if there's one thing I can conclude from looking over my Jack Kelly blog posts (apart from the realization that there's so fucking much of it) is that I finally do have an answer to my rhetorical question:

Doesn't Anyone Fact-Check Jack Kelly?

The answer is this: I guess I do (though, to be fair, I'm not the only one).

Thanks for all this, Jack.  It's been a wonderful ride.  You're still a right-wing nut case who should be forever criticized for lowering our epistemological expectations and (let's be honest) you've been wrong far more often than you're right but still - this has certainly been a unique education for me.

But what am I gonna do on Sunday mornings from now on???