Ubiquitous
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A panelist remembers the political priest turned talk-show host who 
brought strong opinions to Sunday mornings.
If there were a Mount Olympus for talk-show hosts, John McLaughlin 
would be on it. He was the first to recognize the value of combative 
political talk on television when he launched the McLaughlin Group 
in the early ’80s. After 34 years of never missing a show, his 
moderator’s chair was empty last Sunday, and long-serving panelist 
Pat Buchanan opened the show.
An opening statement said John was “under the weather,” but we all 
knew it was more than that. He passed away peacefully early Tuesday 
morning at home with hospice care, and under the watchful care of 
Maritza, his partner, who helped him carry on until almost the end.
In an email today, she said he went to join his beloved Oliver in 
heaven. Oliver was the basset hound by his side back in the Nixon 
years, who his production company is named after.
McLaughlin was 89 years old, and the cause of death was prostate 
cancer that was diagnosed some time ago and that had spread. The 
last show he presided over was taped the Friday after the Republican 
Convention, and it was clear to viewers that his health was 
declining.
We panelists could see he wasn’t well, but I attributed it to “just” 
age. Not that aging is insignificant, but John did not disclose that 
he was ill, and we didn’t dwell on it.
I went to see him at home and I told him, “John, you made me who I 
am before I knew who I was.” That made him smile. The Friday before 
he died, with the help of Maritza, he painstakingly narrated the 
show’s final issue on what Pope Francis had said recently about 
elevating women in the Roman Catholic Church.
John was hard to understand and there were captions added so viewers 
could follow his words, but the will to go on with the show he had 
created never wavered.
Not everyone realized it, but John was a former Jesuit priest. 
During the Vietnam years, he ran for the U.S. Senate from his native 
Rhode Island as an anti-war priest on the Republican ticket. He 
didn’t win; he got 36 percent of the vote against the Democrat, John 
Pastore for trivia buffs.
He went on to work for the Nixon campaign and then the Nixon White 
House, which is where he met Pat Buchanan. They were comrades in 
arms, spouting Latin and church dogma and trading political stories 
that a neophyte like me found fascinating both on the set and off. 
They referred to President Nixon as “the old man.”
John was one of the old man’s last defenders, along with Rabbi 
Korff, and when I came to Washington in December of 1976, having 
covered Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign, I knew John as “that 
crazy right-wing priest” who hosted a radio show where he and his 
guests really let loose.
Turns out he was on to something, and the McLaughlin Group followed 
soon after. I wasn’t part of the original cast, but in 1983, as a 
reporter in Washington for Newsweek, he summoned me to his then 
office on K Street and peppered me with a series of questions. I 
remember two of them: What did I think about Barney Clark’s heart 
transplant? He was the first recipient of an artificial heart, and 
he died after 112 days. There was a debate over the ethics of how 
much it cost and whether it was worth it.
The second question was about arms to Taiwan. What was my position 
on that? I looked at John, dumbfounded, and said, I’m a reporter, I 
don’t have strong opinions.
“You want to be on my show, you better get some strong opinions,” he 
said. That turned out to be really easy. I was seated across from 
Buchanan, the original culture warrior, and next to Bob Novak, the 
conservative columnist with a permanent scowl known as the “Prince 
of Darkness.”
You couldn’t find better character actors, and I would be remiss if 
I didn’t mention Jack Germond, one of the original panelists who for 
years was every viewer’s favorite for his grumpy insights and his 
defiantly liberal positions.
John, with his imposing stature and his booming voice of God, was of 
course the larger-than-life figure that dominated the show. He 
created such a high-octane atmosphere that there was no time for 
hemming and hawing, or for pretending to be fairer than you felt. 
You had to blurt out what you actually thought before you got cut 
off.
As one of the few women in the early years to appear regularly as a 
panelist, I got cut off more than the men. But I held my own, which 
is what other women would often tell me, and that will be the title 
of the memoir I plan to write some day.
I told John when I saw him the week before he died that he made me 
seem a lot fiercer than I am. My late husband, Tom Brazaitis, who 
was also a journalist, used to joke that he helped me prep for the 
show by shouting “Wrong!” over and over. Tom said the show was like 
a men’s locker room with the guys towel-snapping while they one-
upped each other.
It was a game, but it was also serious. Every issue was deeply 
researched, and John relished weightier issues like NATO 
enlargement, making us eat our vegetables before we would get to the 
easy headlines. The show was memorialized on Saturday Night Live 
back in the day with Dana Carvey playing John, and John later 
playing himself.
We will miss his signature phrases, beginning with Issue One, and 
ending with Bye-Bye. And we will miss the man, who was always a 
blast to be around. John was an original, and while there are many 
imitators, he will never be overtaken. He got there first, and he 
created something that in its own way is as iconic as The 
Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason, a comparison I know John would 
love.
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