I just learned that one of my oldest and dearest friends, Rich Nadler, died this morning at his home in Kansas City. Rich was many things: a high-school dropout, an autodidact, a traveling jazz musician, an ex-communist, the publisher of the late, great K.C. Jones, a hilarious movie reviewer, the head of the Missouri Taxpayers Watchdog Association, and a sometime contributor to National Review and, lately, the Corner. In the last years of his life he was, above all, a devout orthodox Jew and a devoted husband to Barbara.
He gave me my start in journalism and constantly encouraged me, even as we came to disagree on some matters. He was one of the most brilliant men I have ever known. Now there are a hundred things I won’t be able to talk or argue with him about. R.I.P.