Voting Station

Westbrook Pegler

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Commentator

The Resume

    (August 2, 1894-June 24, 1969)
    Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota
    Birth name was James Westbrook Pegler
    War correspondent during World War I
    Newspaper columnist
    Columns syndicated by Scripps-Howard (1933-44) and Hearst (1944-62)

Why he might be annoying:

    He was racist and anti-Semitic.
    He was a rabid, paranoid anti-Communist.
    He hated FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt.
    He thought Eleanor's support for civil rights was pro-Communist.
    Another journalist, Quentin Reynolds, sued him for libel and won.
    He was nicknamed 'the stuck whistle of journalism.'
    He opposed the 1960s civil rights movement.
    He was fired from Hearst newspapers for criticizing their executives.
    Later in his career, he wrote for the far-right John Birch Society -- until he was booted for being too extreme even for them.
    He said it was 'clearly the bounden duty of all intelligent Americans to proclaim and practice bigotry.'
    Sarah Palin quoted him in her speech at the Republican National Convention.
    He saw himself as a populist spokesman for the common working man.
    He died of stomach cancer.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1941 when he exposed corruption in unions.
    Ironically, his first wife, Julia Harpman, was Jewish.
    Early in his career, publisher Roy Howard said that he showed 'the drollery of Ring Lardner, the iconclasm of Henry Mencken, the homely insight of Will Rogers.'
    His comment that Palin quoted ('We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity') was one of his more benign sentiments. (Although you would think that her speechwriter could have found at least one non-Jewbaiting non-racist who had said nice things about small towns.)

Credit: Truffle


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 12 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 7 Votes: 14.29% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 4 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 6 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 14 Votes: 57.14% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 15 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 10 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 26 Votes: 69.23% Annoying