Dear Tina Brown,

It must be awful dragging that albatross Newsweek around while your little brainchild The Daily Beast flourishes? :  case in point, the reply by  A. Larry  Ross to an unflattering group portrait of the Graham ‘children’, in Newsweek. Is it just a sop to the indignant ‘children’ to forestall a lawsuit? We Americans grew up with Mr. Graham, he was America’s most famous Tent Preacher with pretensions to political/moral respectability. You must appreciate that Mr. Graham represented the aspirations of American Believers, to the cultivation of a well defined, yet non-existent, spiritual center, founded on self-congratulatory public moralizing, within the framework of Frontier Christianity. Ms. Brown, I simply must quote from the long apologia of Mr. Ross, it is irresistible quotable:  

‘If an individual’s reputation involves how he or she is perceived today, legacy is a reflection of how that person will be viewed generations from now. Legacies stand the test of time for select persons, like Graham, who have made a significant impact on their era or culture. They only have meaning when considered in a redemptive-historical context of concurrently operative spiritual, political, and cultural forces, and how that individual influenced behavior, opinion, or history.’

Mr. Ross can ‘lay it on thick’ as they used to say, he definitely earned his keep. One of Mr. Graham’s great talents was for shameless self-promotion, but always in front of the ubiquitous camera. And an addiction to associate himself with powerful, well connected Public Men, of a certain political hue, like Richard Nixon, among others. Hope you find a buyer soon for Newsweek. Thanks for the listening ear!

Literary Hack