Humorist Art Buchwald Dies

Buchwald was a delight -- a non-partisan commentator on life and food and politics who made cutting jibes that were never cruel but always funny and true. A typical joke skewered the communist scare.

In the early 1960’s, Mr. Buchwald theorized that a shortage of Communists was imminent in the United States and that if the nation was not careful, the Communist Party would be made up almost entirely of F.B.I. informers.

Now, he's dead. Hilariously, Buchwald and the NYTimes filmed his obit interview -- the somewhat gruesome tradition of interviewing famous people in the twilight of their lives, not for a feature but for an obituary. It isn't always made clear, but everyone knows what's going on. Buchwald has fun with this and the video is posted online.