The Michael Behind the Mike

CHANGEOVER Michael Medved today talk radio’s most convincing conservative spent most of his twenties involved in political campaigns on behalf of left-wing candidates. Ironically the experience helped drive him in the opposite direction politically but change took time. “I refused to give up on thinking of myself as a liberal because I didn’t want to stop seeing myself as a good person” (Photos: Luci Varon)

“Thanks for sparing me the need to write my autobiography” I quip to national talk-radio host Michael Medved when we first meet at the Bonneville Radio Building in downtown Seattle on a drizzly day in late February.

I’ve been reading his autobiography Right Turns and find the parallels to my own life eerie. We both come from highly identified Jewish families of all boys all but one of whom became observant Jews. We both have followed a trajectory from left to right both religiously and politically. We even shared a favorite breed of dog: I grew up with two Norwegian Elkhounds and Michael’s first marital home also included two of the same breed.

Michael was voted “most radical” in his elite high school class; I (regrettably) got the dress code abolished in my suburban high school. Medved went on to become one of the leaders of the Vietnam Moratorium Day and to address 50 000 protestors on New Haven Green.