Courage, Aristotle says somewhere, is the first of the virtues, because courage makes the other virtues possible. Our friend and colleague Dean Barnett was brave. He was brave to a degree that perhaps only his beloved wife, Kirstan, and others in his immediate family were able to appreciate.
Dean rarely talked to his friends about what he had done over the years--or what he had to do every day--to overcome his cystic fibrosis, diagnosed in infancy. But overcome it he did. Until it finally cut his life short. Still, as Nancy Zimmerman, one of Dean's friends, put it in an email a few hours after his death on October 27, "More life in 41 years than five people cram in 80."
Now, courage is a stern virtue--and those who have courage are usually sober and serious. Dean, though, was effervescently witty and high-spirited. He had a most unusual combination of strength of character and lightness of heart.
And he had great generosity of spirit. Dean befriended, promoted, and helped lots of people without talking about it or taking credit. Dean wasn't a softy--he had been a legal headhunter, and he had good judgment about people. But he was a remarkably good-natured and kind man--not qualities that always go with being very smart, which he also was. And there was nothing petty about him.
All of us at THE WEEKLY STANDARD have been amazed by the tributes to Dean that have come flowing in. Dean affected not just those who knew him personally, but also many who corresponded with him but never met him, and many who simply knew him from reading his work. He touched an awful lot of people, of all ages and types, and touched them deeply. Some he taught about politics, some about the Red Sox or golf courses or HBO series, some about how to write and think--and some about life.
Those of us who were fortunate to have been his friends--and how we wish we could have been his friends for many more years!--will always have the satisfaction of remembering him vividly, as he was in person. It was a privilege to see up close Dean's wit, and his courage, and his character. As Richard Starr put it,
Of the writers I have worked with over the years, none was sweeter, more cheerful, and less self-pitying than Dean. Like his other friends and correspondents, I cherished his emails and phone calls--among other reasons because they always lightened the day's load, rather than adding to it.
One of the many, many emails I received after Dean's death was from our friend Tom Cotton, who recently deployed to Afghanistan. He wrote:
I learned about Dean's death early this morning (local time) before going on my first really long patrol here. We drove about eight hours round trip, so I had lots of time to think. Like you, what struck me most about Dean was his remarkable courage in the face of his disease. Dean had the heart of a lion, as brave as any soldier I've known. And there was his generosity. I first started reading Dean's writing while in Iraq and he always returned my emails quickly. When I got back stateside, he went out of his way to meet me when I visited Boston and always made time for a phone call. Like so many, I was lucky and honored to call Dean my friend. I will miss him dearly.
I too will miss him dearly. I already do.
A couple of years ago, Dean commented:
When you see death up close, a couple of things become clear. One is that we all die, and that death is just part of the deal. The other is that life is such a blessing, that it's just so great, even though you know the inevitable might be near you still want as many bites of the apple as possible. None of us knows what the future of the salt water treatment might be. . . . The good times could continue for years, or it could all crash tomorrow. But regardless, this treatment has given me time--time to spend with my wife and family and friends. Time to hit golf balls (usually sideways, but even that's all right). Time to chase my dogs around the house. Time that frankly I didn't expect to have. There could be no greater gift, and it's a miracle in so many ways.
Dean's life was a miracle in so many ways. We at THE WEEKLY STANDARD mourn his loss but cherish his memory--and his life--as a blessing.
--WILLIAM KRISTOL
EDITOR'S NOTE: After Dean Barnett's death on October 27, dozens of people who had come to know him through his writing for this magazine and elsewhere, and in his earlier career as a Boston-based businessman, wrote memorials, a small selection of which we excerpt below.
I remember meeting the Barnett brothers. It was 1994, and I was running against Ted Kennedy. Keith, now a lawyer in Boston, was jovial and enthusiastic. Dean was more laid-back. He had a knowing smile--like he hadn't caught the canary yet, but he had it locked in a room. Over that campaign and over the years that followed, I got to know Dean very well. And I learned why he was smiling--Dean was "wicked smart," as they say around here. He had extraordinary perspective and insight. He brought a lot more to our friendship than I ever could have imagined.
Dean didn't tell me that he had cystic fibrosis--I heard it from an acquaintance. Dean was too intent on giving to our friendship to expect me to give something back to him. Over the years, I knew of his visits to the hospital and bouts with complications, but Dean's smile and generosity of spirit never faltered.
Perhaps his unusual appreciation for the precious value of life enabled Dean to see what others missed, to cut to the nub, and to dispense with excuse and correctness. What it meant to me was advice and counsel that came clean and sharp. What it meant to his readers and listeners was unadorned truth and honest expression. We will miss Dean for what he saw and said. I will miss him for that and for much more. He was the real deal.
--MITT ROMNEY
But for his great love of golf, Dean might have taken on full time radio work, but the combination of the opportunities allowed by new media and of regular guest hosting scratched his itch to participate in the great debates of our time. Dean told me early in our friendship that his disease had forced him to deal with the possibility of living too short a life and that he thus threw himself into everything. This ferocious desire to live well and fully is what I will always tell people marked Dean Barnett. His extraordinary story is told in his pamphlet The Plucky Smart Kid with the Fatal Disease, and his life will long be an example to others battling with cystic fibrosis. I hope we can report someday soon the news that a cure for CF is in hand, and on that day toast Dean for all he did to raise awareness of the disease. I will also toast him whenever I hear smart, persuasive arguments on behalf of common sense conservatism and fierce attachment to the opportunities liberty bestows.
--HUGH HEWITT
Dean had many virtues, both as a writer and a man, but the one I admired most was his sense of charity. Dean was inclined to think the best of people, even people with whom he disagreed or, in the extremely rare case, didn't much like. Charity is rare, particularly in writing, where it is so terribly easy to assume the worst or to be unkind. His charitableness is what first attracted me to Dean. It's what marked him as a rare talent and, more important, a great man.
--JONATHAN V. LAST
Dean was a sterling example of the democratizing power of the Internet to bring forward voices that, in previous generations, might never have found the proper vehicle for meaningful self-expression. He was a natural, a fluent and fluid prose stylist of uncommon good humor. The fact that he found such good cheer in such difficult times surely had something to do with the remarkably good-natured, matter-of-fact, and quietly brave way he lived with his cystic fibrosis, about which he wrote as lucidly as he wrote almost everything else. I had literally hundreds of email exchanges with him, and they were highlights of every day on which I was lucky to participate in them. This is yet another remarkable quality of the Internet--that it creates new kinds of friendships based on very old epistolary models. He was one of nature's noblemen. Zikhrono Liv'rackha--may his memory be for a blessing.
--JOHN PODHORETZ
He didn't mean to, but Dean astonished us, living life with a brutal disease the way he did, hand firmly on the throttle of it, no goggles, no fear of the sharp curves, and, most important, no excuses. He didn't mean to, but Dean implicitly challenged others to venture off the flat driveways.
I met Dean by becoming a faithful reader of his beloved Soxblog. After a time, he asked me to become a co-blogger, and insisted that I use the nom de blog of "Carl Bernard" (paying homage to Carl Yastrzemski and Bernie Carbo). I considered him an intellectual brother-in-arms. The situation was more realistically akin to a varsity quarterback letting a peach-fuzzed freshman sit in on a few practices "to get a feel for the game." Dean practiced hard.
Dean had run a business and had worked on "commission," pursuits that create a healthy respect for the complexities of the world. And yes, Dean had a brain worthy of Harvard, his alma mater. But what truly distinguished his writings was his ability "to size things" up instantly, and to do so wisely. This gift is God-given, severely rationed, and most in demand in the Internet age. Dean had this rare gift, and he shared it with us.
He once wrote of his health that "the good times could continue for years, or it could all crash tomorrow." Yes, the good times crashed, as he knew they inevitably would, but they crashed with Dean's hands on the throttle.
--PAUL SEYFERTH