PrintApril 3, 2011
Washington Post Misses Real Ron Brown Story
"Ron Brown was on a mission to help connect U.S. businessmen to trade opportunities in the war-ravaged former Yugoslavia when he died in 1996," writes Lonnae O'Neal Parker in an embarrassing gush on the 15th anniversary of the death of Clinton Commerce Secretary, Ron Brown, published in the Washington Post.
In truth, as I document in my book Ron Brown's Body, Brown had been sent against his will to broker a sweetheart deal between the neo-fascists who ran Croatia at the time and the Enron Corporation. This unholy alliance would blow up years later into a government-shaking brouhaha in Croatia.
Up until that moment, Brown's public life had been a series of scandals and sleazy deals. A few months before his death, Clinton attorney general Janet Reno had asked the independent counsel to target Ron's son, Michael Brown, as well as Ron, for an Oklahoma natural gas scam that likely would have sent both of them to prison had Ron Lived.
In the Post article, the credulous Parker elevated both father and son's lives to the mythical. "It's hard when folks say, ‘Who is the next Ron Brown?' " Michael is quoted as saying. "Just like it's hard to say, ‘Who is the next [Michael] Jordan?' "
It was only after the independent counsel targeted Michael that Ron began to see how terribly he had gone astray and how thoroughly he had allowed the Clintons to exploit him. The literal come-to-Jesus turn in his life culminated in a fiery crash in a Croatian hillside that the US Air Force called "inexplicable." "Unexamined" is much more accurate than "inexplicable."
Now, the Post and others in the media turn the tragedy of Brown's life and death into a mindless celebration. In so doing, they dismiss the legitimate questions of many in the African American media, disgrace their profession, and dishonor the life of Ron Brown.
