sen. wm. proxmire, former obit writer.

thanks to adam bernstein for pointing out in his dec. 15th obit for sen. william proxmire that:

Proxmire became a political reporter on the Capital Times in Madison, but soon clashed with management over his wish to start a chapter of the Newspaper Guild as well as his piquant criticism of the publisher's own articles. In a short time, he worked his way down to obituary writer.

i know it sounds condescending. after all, we obit writers celebrate our fabulous talent and love what we do. but you know it's true that proxmire was being assigned to the death beat for his sins against the publisher. it was a demotion.

but just look at what he did after that!