Columnist Art Buchwald dies at 81

? Art Buchwald, the Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist, made a career out of skewering Washington’s elite, then won even wider fame when he chose to let himself die rather than fight for every ounce of life. Now he’s had the last laugh.

Buchwald died of kidney failure at home Wednesday, surrounded by family, nearly a year after he stunned them by rejecting medical treatments aimed at keeping him alive. As it turned out, he lived another year instead of the mere weeks he was given by doctors. He was 81 when he died.

The political satirist went out with a twist:

“Hi, I’m Art Buchwald and I just died,” he announced with a grin, in a video posted on The New York Times Web site. Buchwald recorded the video interview last summer, to be shown after his death.

Buchwald said his months of dying were the time of his life. Neither he nor his doctors could explain why he kept living so long after he checked into a hospice last February, certain at the time that the end was near. “I have to thank my kidneys,” he told The Associated Press last year.

So, as he did during a half-century career that touched two continents, Buchwald decided to make the most of every last minute.

He held court daily in the parlor of his hospice room as friends streamed in to say goodbye. He resumed his twice-weekly column. When it came time to leave the hospice, he spent the summer at his home on Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. He wrote “Too Soon to Say Goodbye,” a book about the experience, and worked book parties in Washington and New York from his wheelchair.

Buchwald said the decision to forgo dialysis and let himself die was liberating. “When you make your choice, then a lot of the stress is gone. Everything is great because you accept that you are the one who made the choice.”

But when death didn’t come, he opined in a column that he had to scrap his funeral plans, rewrite his living will, buy a new cell phone and get on with his improbable life.

Known as the “Wit of Washington,” Buchwald became synonymous with political satire. He was known for having a wide smile and loving a good cigar.

Among his more famous witticisms: “If you attack the establishment long enough and hard enough, they will make you a member of it.”

Ben Bradlee, former Washington Post executive editor who remained friends with Buchwald after they met in Paris in 1950, said in an interview that Buchwald was “the humorist of his generation.”

“We won’t see his like again anytime soon,” added David Williams, president and chief executive officer of Tribune Media Services, which syndicated Buchwald’s column to U.S. and foreign newspapers, including The Washington Post. At one time, the column appeared in more than 500 newspapers worldwide.

The most recent one ran Jan. 2; it was an ode to the number 1 trillion.

Columnist Art Buchwald is seen during an interview Oct. 3, 1984, in St. Louis. Buchwald, the Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist died of kidney failure at home Wednesday, surrounded by family, nearly a year after rejecting medical treatments aimed at keeping him alive.

Buchwald decided to stop writing again after taking a turn for the worse this month. He had undergone treatment for an infection in the stump of his right leg, which doctors amputated last January.

In a goodbye column written for posthumous publication, Buchwald said he was at ease.

“What’s interesting is that everybody has his or her own opinion as to how you should go out,” he wrote. “All my loved ones became very upset because they thought I should brave it out – which meant more dialysis.

“But here is the most important thing: This has been my decision. And it’s a healthy one.”

Born in Mount Vernon, N.Y., on Oct. 25, 1925, Buchwald and his three sisters went to foster homes after their mother was institutionalized for mental illness. Their father, a drapery salesman, suffered Depression-era financial troubles and couldn’t afford to support them.

At 17, Buchwald ran away to join the Marines and spent 3 1/2 years in the Pacific during World War II, attaining the rank of sergeant and spending much of his time editing a Corps newspaper.

He married Ann McGarry, of Warren, Pa., in London on Oct. 12, 1952. The writer and one-time fashion coordinator for Neiman-Marcus later wrote a book with her husband. They adopted three children.

She died in 1994. In 2000, Buchwald published his first novel, “Stella In Heaven: Almost a Novel,” about a widower who can communicate with his deceased wife.

He won the Pulitzer, journalism’s top honor, in 1982 for outstanding commentary. Four years later, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In November, the National Press Foundation honored “his grace, humor, astounding productivity and lifetime commitment to the craft” and was to present him with an award at a dinner in February.

Buchwald’s right leg was amputated below the knee last January because of circulation problems, and he had a major stroke in 2000. He also said he battled depression in 1963 and 1987.

Buchwald is survived by a son, Joel Buchwald, of Washington; two daughters, Jennifer Buchwald, of Roxbury, Mass., and Connie Buchwald Marks, of Culpeper, Va.; three sisters, Edith Jaffe, of Bellevue, Wash., and Doris Kahme, of Delray Beach, Fla., and Monroe Township, N.J.; and five grandchildren.

A memorial service was being planned for Washington. Buchwald is to be interred at the Vineyard Haven Cemetery in Martha’s Vineyard, where his wife is buried.