John McLaughlin, the USA talk-show host whose rowdy panel discussions on political issues entertained television viewers for more than 30 years and drew comparisons to professional wrestling, has died.
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On Sunday, he missed his first episode in 34 years as host.
John McLaughlin arrives at the 2012 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington, D.C. McLaughlin, the conservative host of The McLaughlin Group television show that pioneered hollering-heads discussions of Washington politics, died Tuesday at the age of 89.
McLaughlin created the show in 1982 after serving as a Jesuit priest and teacher.
Dr. McLaughlin and his wife of 16 years, former Labor secretary Ann Dore McLaughlin, divorced in 1992.
In his 2000 book, Sound and Fury: The Making of the Punditocracy, Eric Alterman snarked that The McLaughlin Group panelists “always seemed to have just gotten off the phone with the guy in charge”. After Nixon resigned, he worked briefly for President Gerald Ford.
(McLaughlin) “Issue one. Deadline day for ACA”.
McLaughlin’s fame transcended hosting status when, in 1990, The McLaughlin Group became the focus of an occasional Saturday Night Live parody.
McLaughlin, who also was a professor, editor and columnist before becoming an unlikely TV star impersonated by Dana Carvey, died Tuesday at his home in Virginia, according to the show’s producers.
He remembered the dog in a year end episode of “The McLaughlin Group” two years ago saying, “Person of the year: Pope Francis, especially now that he’s told that animals can go to heaven”. “I began the group as a talk show of the ’90s”. A note to viewers before the show stated he was “under the weather”.
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As an adult he joined but left the priesthood in 1975 to get into politics. This he did after failing to win the support of his Jesuit superiors in his bid to become a senator in early 1970s, which he “lost by a wide margin to the incumbent Democrat, John O. Pastore”, as Elizabeth Jensen of The New York Times noted. He also ran for a seat in the 1970 United States Senate, wrote speeches for President Richard Nixon, and authored a monthly political column for National Review.
