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Airline Blues

Whose fault is the great cartel in the sky?

Illustration by Valerie Pavilonis. (Photo via NurPhoto/Getty Images)
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Nick Offerman, the terrific actor best known to the world as Ron Swanson, apparently had a bit of a slow start to his career and received this advice from a casting agent: “Just grow out your mustache and wait for your sheriff years.” I’m still a bit younger than Andy Rooney was when he started the 60 Minutes end-of-show segments people remember him for—and you cannot really grow out your eyebrows to that famous television commentator’s fat-caterpillar level by an act of will—but I do feel, already, my inner Andy Rooney trying to get out from time to time.

Not that I’m actually much like Andy Rooney. He wasn’t always the goofy old man complaining about the tiny indignities of modern life at the end of 60 Minutes; young Andy Rooney was a badass, a reporter who was awarded a Bronze Star (among other decorations) for his service as a correspondent in World War II, flying on bombing raids over Germany, first on the scene at the critical moment of the capture of the Ludendorff Bridge, one of the first reporters to see the concentration camps. When CBS declined to broadcast one of his commentaries (also about World War II) in 1970, he quit a very comfortable job and took the piece to PBS. CBS eventually figured out that they’d screwed up, and Rooney was back at the network in a couple of years. Andy Rooney was a guy who did the things.

Kevin D. Williamson is national correspondent at The Dispatch and is based in Virginia. Prior to joining the company in 2022, he spent 15 years as a writer and editor at National Review, worked as the theater critic at the New Criterion, and had a long career in local newspapers. He is also a writer in residence at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. When Kevin is not reporting on the world outside Washington for his Wanderland newsletter, you can find him at the rifle range or reading a book about literally almost anything other than politics.

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