John McLaughlin Host of the “The McLaughlin Group,” Died: RIP

John McLaughlin was most recently host of the “The McLaughlin Group,”  died on Tuesday, August 16th.  Rest in Peace.  Whole family enjoyed watching his show on Sundays.  JM will be missed.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/17/business/media/john-mclaughlin-tv-host-who-made-combat-of-punditry-dies-at-89.html?_r=0

John McLaughlin, a former Roman Catholic priest who became an aide to Richard M. Nixon in the White House and parlayed his fierce defense of the president into a television career as host of “The McLaughlin Group,” the long-running Sunday morning program of combative political punditry, died on Tuesday at his home in Washington. He was 89.
His death was announced on the program’s Facebook page. The columnist Eleanor Clift, a longtime panelist on the show, wrote in The Daily Beast that he had been treated for prostate cancer for some time and that it had spread.
Mr. McLaughlin had been absent from the show this last weekend for the first time in more than 34 years. “I am under the weather,” he wrote to viewers in a note that began the broadcast, adding that his voice was “weaker than usual” but that his “spirit is strong.”
As creator, executive producer and host of “The McLaughlin Group,” which began in 1982, Mr. McLaughlin helped reinvent the political talk-show format by injecting unabashed partisanship and a dash of entertainment.
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His program, broadcast on select CBS and PBS stations, inspired a generation of pundits, although few quite adopted his self-exaggerated, blustery persona. His penchant for giving nicknames to his panelists, his riffling through the week’s topics and his prosecutorial questioning became fodder for comedians, notably Dana Carvey on “Saturday Night Live,” even while policy makers tuned in for the political observations.
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On the set of “The McLaughlin Group” in 1992 are, from left, Eleanor Clift, Morton Kondracke, Mr. McLaughlin, Clarence Page and Fred Barnes. CreditStephen CrowleyThe show always ended with a prediction by each of the panelists, with Mr. McLaughlin getting the final word, even if seemingly with tongue in cheek. In 1989, for example, he predicted, “Within weeks, Delaware will authorize public flogging for drug trafficking.’’ (It did not.) His trademark signoff was a robust “Bye-bye!”
Mr. McLaughlin, who left the priesthood in 1975, “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. Ms. Haddad was also an executive producer of “Hardball With Chris Matthews,” whose host got ample exposure on Mr. McLaughlin’s weekly round table earlier in his career.
“The early success of CNN,” Ms. Haddad noted, was based on its “political food fights” by the likes of Robert Novak and Patrick J. Buchanan, both of whom were founding “McLaughlin Group” panelists.
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While in the White House, Mr. McLaughlin, well-informed but prone to tirades, would “sometimes almost become a cartoon of himself” when reporters called, said Bob Schieffer, the CBS News Washington reporter who became host of the CBS Sunday show “Face the Nation.” But as a talk-show host, Mr. Schieffer said, Mr. McLaughlin changed the industry with his shouting.
Combativeness was part of Mr. McLaughlin’s style from the beginning. As a Jesuit priest, he had been in frequent conflict with his superiors, who disapproved of his 1970 run for the United States Senate in Rhode Island as a Republican calling for a rapid end to the Vietnam War. Father McLaughlin, who had resigned as an editor at the Jesuit magazine America and switched his party affiliation, was believed to be the first active Roman Catholic priest to run for the Senate.
He stood in sharp contrast to his fellow Jesuit Robert Drinan of Massachusetts, who was given permission to run for the House that same year as an antiwar Democrat. Father McLaughlin, who was chastised by the bishop of Providence, R.I., for his Senate run, lost by a wide margin to the incumbent Democrat, John O. Pastore.
Father McLaughlin went to Washington anyway, joining President Nixon’s speechwriting team in 1971. Nicknamed Nixon’s Priest, he gave frequent speeches in defense of the president’s conduct of the Vietnam War, including bombing missions into Cambodia.
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Mr. McLaughlin, who was nicknamed Nixon’s Priest, with the president at the White House on May 3, 1974.CreditKarl H. Schumacher, U.S. National Archives and Records AdministrationAs the Watergate crisis deepened, Father McLaughlin became one of the president’s most visible supporters. At one news conference, he dismissed Nixon’s use of profanity as “emotional drainage.” Less than two weeks before the president resigned, Father McLaughlin warned in a speech at the National Press Club that the nation would face a “parade of horrors” should Nixon be impeached. (On July 31, 1973, Father Drinan became the first congressman to call for impeachment in a House resolution.)
After Vice President Gerald R. Ford succeeded Nixon in August 1974, Father McLaughlin’s speechwriting position was abolished.
Father McLaughlin had maintained a high profile in Washington, living at the tony Watergate complex rather than in the austere Jesuit residence at Georgetown University where Father Drinan lived. This led his church superiors to rebuke him in May 1974, summoning him to a period of “reflection.”
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In 1974, church superiors rebuked Father McLaughlin for his Washington lifestyle.CreditAssociated PressInstead, in 1975, Mr. McLaughlin successfully petitioned Pope Paul VI and was released from his vows.
That same year he married Ann Dore, his former Senate campaign manager. She later served as secretary of labor under President Ronald Reagan. 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. There was no immediate word on survivors.
John Joseph McLaughlin was born in Providence on March 29, 1927, to the former Eva Turcotte and Augustus H. McLaughlin, a regional salesman for a furniture company. After graduating from LaSalle Academy in Providence and studying for the priesthood in Massachusetts, he was ordained a priest in 1959.
He earned master’s degrees in philosophy and English literature from Boston College, and a doctorate in philosophy from Columbia University. He then taught at the Jesuit-run Fairfield College Preparatory School in Connecticut.
After leaving the White House, he and his wife at the time, Ms. Dore, founded a media relations and public affairs consulting company. In the early 1980s, Mr. McLaughlin hosted a weekend talk program on the Washington radio station WRC. After joining the magazine National Review as the Washington editor and a columnist, he founded a television production concern with the backing of former Nixon allies and persuaded NBC’s Washington television affiliate, WRC-TV, to broadcast a new type of weekend political talk show and to let him host it.
At the time, TV round tables of journalists like “Agronsky & Company” and “Washington Week in Review” dissected the week’s developments in a sober, nonpartisan style. Mr. McLaughlin envisioned a more animated, argumentative format including a panel reflecting conservative, moderate and liberal views, with him as moderator.
From its debut in 1982 “The McLaughlin Group” took on the flavor of a barroom debate, pitting a largely white, male cadre of columnists and political insiders against one another as they gave vent to views from the hard right (Mr. Novak and Mr. Buchanan) to the center-left (Morton Kondracke of The New Republic and Jack Germond of The Baltimore Sun). Ms. Clift, a Newsweek correspondent at the time, and the Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page, who is black, later joined the group as more liberal regulars.
Regardless of the panelists’ political persuasions, Mr. McLaughlin, whose own politics leaned decidedly right, would often fire off questions and cut them off, shouting “Wronnnng!”
When the cameras were off, the panelists often feuded. Mr. Novak left after a falling out in 1988 and founded a similar program on CNN, “Capital Gang.” In an interview on PBS in June 2007, Mr. Novak said of Mr. McLaughlin, “He may not be pure evil, but he’s close to it.” Mr. Germond, another of the original panelists, called the show “really bad TV,” and said he had stayed on only because he needed the money to pay his daughter’s medical school tuition.
259COMMENTSMr. McLaughlin was also the executive producer and host of “John McLaughlin’s One on One,” a weekly interview program that was broadcast on NBC and PBS stations. From 1989 to 1994 he hosted a daily interview show on CNBC.
In a 1992 profile in The Times, Mr. McLaughlin defended his style. “Does this depreciate journalism?” he asked. “Not one damned bit. Journalists can get very pompous, especially in the formalized days of ‘Meet the Press,’ when they took themselves so damned seriously. This show demythologizes the press, and I think people like that.”
Correction: August 18, 2016 
An obituary on Wednesday about John McLaughlin, the host of the long-running television talk show “The McLaughlin Group,” referred incorrectly to the magazine National Review, where he worked in the 1980s. It is published biweekly, not weekly. The obituary also misstated the length of Mr. McLaughlin’s tenure there. He remained at National Review for a number of years after “The McLaughlin Group” made its debut in 1982; he did not begin the program “after a stint” at the magazine. Because of an editing error, the obituary also misstated the year Mr. McLaughlin was ordained a priest. It was 1959, not 1947.

Dana Carvey SNL Sketch of McLaughlin Group:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koFlWXgX52E

Never knew this curmudgeon as a priest. Amazing life. Always liked his 'Buh bye!" sign off. A real pioneer in the talking heads format. 

Really enjoyed watching him years ago, but hadn't seen him recently.

Anyone remember this exchange from a few years back?

John:  In what year shall I die?

Sam:  2012?

John:  No!!  Morton?

Morton:  2025?

John:  No!!!!   I shall die in 2016!!  Buh Bye!!!!

(no disrespect intended)

True story?

ice said:

Really enjoyed watching him years ago, but hadn't seen him recently.

Anyone remember this exchange from a few years back?

John:  In what year shall I die?

Sam:  2012?

John:  No!!  Morton?

Morton:  2025?

John:  No!!!!   I shall die in 2016!!  Buh Bye!!!!




(no disrespect intended)

Well done.

I hope the panel stays together. It won't be the same without McLaughlin but after watching it last Sunday with the panel sharing the moderation, I had the feeling that they all new this was on the horizon. When the Chris Matthews show left the Sunday line-up I begrudgingly adapted but if I have to lose the McLaughlin group its going to be a long stretch waiting for Fareed's GPS.

Eleanor Clift is Montgomery Clift's like third cousin once removed or something.

Robert_Casotto said:

Eleanor Clift is Montgomery Clift's like third cousin once removed or something.

And I am FDR's sixth cousin thrice removed. Yaaawwwn!!!!

RealityForAll said:

Robert_Casotto said:

Eleanor Clift is Montgomery Clift's like third cousin once removed or something.

And I am FDR's sixth cousin thrice removed. Yaaawwwn!!!!

I don't know. I like those odd celebrity relative pairings. With so much attention on the late Andrew Breitbart lately, it always amuses me to remember that his father-in-law is Orson Bean.

I liked John McGlaughlin.  That was the show where I discovered Pat Buchanan.  I was a self identifying liberal.  I used to get really concerned how often I agreed with him.  Sometimes he'd say something pretty odd, but usually he was making sense. 

It was a great show.  I haven't watched in some time, but I couldn't imagine it without him.  He wasn't limited to "Buh Bye!" either.  I remember his Thanksgiving sign off. "Gobble Gobble!"

Robert_Casotto said:

Eleanor Clift is Montgomery Clift's like third cousin once removed or something.

According to Eleanor's Wiki page, she was married to Clift's brother.  Montgomery Clift was a beautiful looking man.  He was also one of Elizabeth Taylor's best friends.