James J. Kilpatrick
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James J. Kilpatrick (b. November 1, 1920) is a conservative columnist and grammarian.
Kilpatrick began writing his syndicated political column, "A Conservative View," in 1964, after he had spent many years as an editor of the Richmond News-Leader. A fervent segregationist, he asked in a 1963 essay for the Saturday Evening Post, "Where is the Negro to be found?" and answered, "He is still digging the ditch. He is down at the gin mill shooting craps. He is lying limp in the middle of the sidwalk, yelling he is equal. The hell he is equal." As Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff report in their 2006 book The Race Beat, the magazine refused to print the article.
Kilpatrick changed his position over many years' reflection and subsequently renounced his former thinking, though he remained a staunch opponent of actual or perceived federal encroachments upon the individual states.
Kilpatrick achieved fame in the 1970s during nine years as a debater on the "60 Minutes" segment "Point-Counterpoint," opposite Nicholas von Hoffman (and subsequently Shana Alexander). He was a panelist on Agronsky and Company, a journalist roundtable discussion show that recapped the week's events in American national politics. He is now a columnist for the Universal Press Syndicate and is syndicated in over 180 newspapers around the country.
Kilpatrick has long since semi-retired, shifting from a three-times-a-week political column to a weekly column on judicial issues, "Covering the Courts." He also writes a syndicated column dealing with English usage, especially in writing, called "The Writer's Art." He is the author of a book of the same title. His books include The Foxes Union, a charming recollection of his life in Rappahannock County, Virginia, in the Blue Ridge Mountains; Fine Print: Reflections on the Writing Art; and, A Political Bestiary, with former U.S. Senator Eugene McCarthy.
In 1998, Kilpatrick, then a widower, married a second time, to liberal Washington-based syndicated columnist Marianne Means.
