The American Spectator lost a great friend today, Ted Olson. He was a steadfast Spectator board member, a gifted writer of some of our most memorable anti-Clinton diatribes, and an all-around wise counselor. He remained vigorous and intellectually curious all his days, and that’s the way it ought to be. Now he is reunited with his wife Barbara, a victim of the 9/11 atrocities.
I remember him fondly, and with a sense of enormous loss. There won’t be another to fill his shoes ever again at The American Spectator. I recall one wintry afternoon when he came to my house to review a tranche of raw FBI files. Don’t ask how we laid hands on them. They had to do with our Clinton adventures, and the picture they painted of the president was shocking. But the material was raw and couldn’t be verified. Ted would not allow us to use them. Doubtless he saved me from a grave embarrassment, not for the first time.
He and Barbara introduced me to my wife, Jeanne. As I said, he was a wise counselor. We have been together almost 27 years. He was best man at our wedding and Barbara was a maid. Now Ted is gone, and we shall miss him terribly. He was much more than a sage counselor. He was an irreplaceable friend.
