Whitehouse Honors M. Charles Bakst, Scott MacKay, and Mark Arsenault on Their Retirements from the Providence Journal
Mr. President, today, the largest daily newspaper in my home state of Rhode Island - the Providence Journal - is losing three extraordinary journalists. Columnist M. Charles Bakst, better known as Charlie, and reporters Scott MacKay and Mark Arsenault have covered politics in Rhode Island and around the country for a combined total of about 70 years, and they are retiring from the paper as of today. There is a larger story here about what is happening to America's newspapers, but my purpose today is not to talk about that, but about them.
All of them are gifted writers, and all have brought to the Journal sharp eyes for detail, long memories, and distinctive voices. They will be sorely missed. Scott is a particular friend, and I am sorry I will no longer have the pleasure of reading Scott's colorful political takes on the state we both love. I hope he will return to the Providence Newspaper Guild "Follies," to continue his traditional role emceeing that evening of alleged music, wit and humor. I wish well to Mark Arsenault, whose talents support a bright future in whatever new endeavors he chooses to pursue. But the remainder of my remarks will be about Charlie Bakst.
If you're from Rhode Island and involved in politics, you know Charlie Bakst. You see him in the State House, you see him at City Hall, you see him at fundraisers and roasts and meatball dinners and clambakes, and you see him at lunch at Angelo's on Federal Hill. Everywhere there is politics - and in Rhode Island, that is everywhere - Charlie is there, soaking in the scene, talking to people, and commenting on the food. Everything is grist for what Charlie is pleased to call his "excellent columns."
Charlie's memory for history and for detail is legendary, as is his miraculous success at landing interviews that are either totally forbidden or extraordinarily difficult to get. He's jumped into limousines and lain in wait by back doors. He's talked with United States presidents, past and future. He's questioned senators, governors, party leaders, political operatives, even world leaders.
If you've ever been involved in politics in Rhode Island, chances are that you've been confronted by Charlie Bakst: red suspenders, unkempt hair, and ever-present tape recorder, and chances are that afterwards you've found something in what he wrote to be annoyed about. But in the end, that's the way we in politics are supposed to feel. As the saying goes: if a politician doesn't feel a little twinge of anxiety when he hears that newspaper thump on the front porch in the morning, the paper's not doing its job. Well - Charlie always did his job.
Journalism is in Charlie's blood. At summer camp in Hampstead, New Hampshire in the 1950s, he announced baseball scores at the camp's daily flag ceremonies - "in retrospect," he wrote, "an early, dangerous sign of: Journalist Ahead." At Brown, he became Editor-in-Chief of the Brown Daily Herald. He went on to earn his master's from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, and later returned to Rhode Island to join the Providence Journal, eventually becoming the State House bureau chief and political columnist.
Politics, too, were a lifelong passion. In another formative summer camp experience, he listened to radio broadcasts of the 1956 Democratic Convention - I'll confess that I was probably not one year old then and not listening very closely. At that time, then-Senator John F. Kennedy narrowly missed winning his party's vice presidential nomination. "Believe it or not, that helped hook me on politics," Charlie wrote decades later.
Well, it's not that difficult to believe. Charlie's writing betrays a sense of wonder at the pageantry of politics - and a fierce belief in government's obligation to the people that it serves. Charlie told it like he saw it. And when he saw a public servant abusing the public trust, he said so.
"I must say I've never lacked for copy," Charlie told the New York Times in 2001. His columns have ripped into public figures for corruption, for dishonesty, and for incompetence. In a column written as New Orleans staggered in the violent wake of Hurricane Katrina, his outrage is visceral. "America has become a laughingstock," he wrote. "To think that people could suffer, here, for days, on rooftops or terraces, or in a sports arena or convention center, without rudimentary help like food or water, amid lawlessness and stench, surrounded by death." He ended with an invocation of Jimmy Carter: "Wouldn't it be nice to have a government as good and decent as the American people?"
This is Charlie Bakst's dream for America and his dream for our Ocean State, and his columns have always prodded us towards that dream.
He is particularly outspoken when he sees injustice and oppression. He sought out leaders in the civil rights movement, interviewing Representative John Lewis and Cesar Chavez, among others. He found unsung Rhode Island heroes, who worked on behalf of the homeless, or the poor, or the disadvantaged, and told their stories. He showed special courage in his unwavering advocacy for the rights of gays and lesbians, particularly the long struggle for equal marriage, even when some readers took vocal offense.
Charlie is also obsessed with baseball and with his beloved Red Sox in particular. The team was a family affair in the Bakst household; Charlie writes of many trips to Fenway Park with his late father, Lester, and his brother Arthur. His first game at Fenway - at age 8 - happened to be on April 30, 1952, the last game that Ted Williams played before he shipped out to Korea.
Ted Williams was a particular hero, and years after that first game, Charlie's colleagues at the Journal gave him, as a 50th birthday gift, a lifetime membership to the Ted Williams Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. Charlie visited the museum and immediately collared his tour guide to suggest corrections to the exhibit.
Charlie followed baseball all over the country, and maintained a love affair with food, from buffet table fare at local fundraisers to historic restaurants like Angelo's, where his personal bottle of olive oil, stashed in the kitchen, has "BAKST" written across the top in black ink. These interests, baseball and food, come together in columns disclosing that at Safeco Field, home of the Seattle Mariners, you can eat everything from sushi and pad thai to chowder and deep-fried mushrooms - not to mention a half-pound Home Run Dog just outside the ballpark.
At Petco Park, home of the San Diego Padres, Charlie reported on shrimp avocado salad, barbequed ribs, fish tacos, garlic fries, veggie dogs, Oreo cookie cheesecake, and cappuccino.
I was glad when Charlie was able to stop by one of my regular community dinners in East Providence last year. Our M&M cookies made it into his Sunday column.
Finally, we've seen Charlie's deep and abiding love for his family: his wife, Elizabeth, and his daughters Maggie and Diane and their families. I hope that in his retirement he will get to see more of them, and to spend more time with Diane and her family in Italy, as he once wrote he would like to do.
But no matter what he chooses to do next, I hope Rhode Island will find a way not to lose Charlie's unique voice, his rich memory, after I believe 36 years of journalism in Rhode Island, and the impassioned commitment that he brought to his profession.
Of his friend, WJAR investigative reporter Jim Taricani, Charlie once wrote this: "[B]eing a journalist is more than a job. It is a burden, a pleasure, and an honor."
Well, Charlie, working with you for the past twenty years has been a burden, a pleasure, and an honor. I look forward to talking with you for many years to come, and I wish you, and Mark, and Scott well in your retirement.
Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
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