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Writer Honored At Convocation
 Richard Ben Cramer likes to get the story behind the story. So when this Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter helped Washington College celebrate its founding patron's birthday, Cramer dug beneath the surface, read the critical media accounts and came to some new conclusions.
George Washington, like all American heroes, wasn't what he appeared to be. He's been idolized by an adoring public, demonized by the media and whitewashed by historians to boot. Cramer entertained the convocation audience with his perceptions of the nation's leader who contributed 50 guineas to help establish Washington College because he believed in "the nurture of the liberal arts."
Washington was no rich landowner, Cramer said. In fact, his farms were running in red ink because Washington had not been paid to lead the Continential Army all those years. He owned hundreds of slaves who might have provided financial relief, but he refused to sell another human being and made the "revolutionary" act of freeing his slaves upon his death. Meanwhile, after the war, he entertained the nation's guests at his home in Mount Vernon, filling their bellies with hams and madeira from his own cellars.
And, by the way, Cramer added, his pristine Mount Vernon home probably looked nothing like it does today, "after the Virginia Ladies of Leisure worked it over real good."
Cramer received the honorary Doctor of Letters degree in recognition of his achievements as a writer. He began his career as a newspaper reporter, serving as international correspondent for the Philadelphia Inquirer for six years. He then turned to freelance work, writing magazine articles for several national magazines. He also has been quite successful as an author and scriptwriter. His book, What It Takes: The Way to the White House, has been called the best book ever written on American politics. One of his documentaries, "Tabloid Truth: The Michael Jackson Story," was nominated for an Emmy, while another, "The Battle Over Citizen Kane," was up for an Academy Award. His latest book, Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life, has been acclaimed as "a stunning feat of meticulous reportage, … scrupulously researched and elegantly written."
"Whether his subjects are presidential candidates, rock stars or sports legends," College President John Toll said in awarding the honorary degree, "Richard Ben Cramer has a keen ability for taking the true measure of a man. In his appraisal of America's political and cultural icons, Cramer also gets to the heart of America's own national identity: our yearnings for greatness and perfection-even by vicarious means; our passion for heroes, both real and imagined; the adulation we lavish on mere mortals, and the damage we thereby inflict. In holding up a mirror to Joe DiMaggio in his recent book, The Hero's Life, Mr. Cramer has given us a telling picture of ourselves."
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