FROM:
 The Seattle Times
 December 22, 2001, Saturday Fourth Edition

SECTION: ROP ZONE; News; Pg. A1
HEADLINE: Editor now treats illness with truth
'Eventually, the advantages of keeping it a secret are outweighed by the
disadvantages.'

BYLINE: Eli Sanders; Seattle Times staff reporter

" It is an exceptionally rain-soaked afternoon, even by Seattle
standards, and
Michael Kinsley is seated on a deep purple couch in his living room,
thick drops
pounding on the wooden deck outside his Lake Washington waterfront home.

   "It's not a subject I care to dwell on," he says, referring to
Parkinson's, a
disease he was diagnosed with eight years ago, and which he kept a secret
until
earlier this month, when he "came out" in a first-person essay written
for Time
magazine.

   Kinsley, 50, speaks softly: The disease has taken from his voice the
shrillness that was one of his trademarks when, until 1996, he played the
regular liberal foil to Pat Buchanan's growling conservative baritone on
CNN's
politics-andargument show, "Crossfire."

   The former pundit and editor of high-brow magazines such as The New
Republic
and Harper's is now at the helm of Microsoft's online magazine, Slate. On
this
day, he's working from his home near Renton -- a home many of his
East-Coast-insider friends find remarkable for its way-out-West location.

   When Kinsley forsook the Beltway for Seattle more than five years ago,
the
news caused such a tremor in the eastern political and journalism
establishment
that it produced a Newsweek cover story featuring a now-famous photo of a
rain-jacketed Kinsley with the headline: "Swimming to Seattle: Everybody
Else is
Moving There. Should You?"

   These days, the buzz surrounding Kinsley is not his location, but his
illness. He knows this, but it doesn't mean he likes it. Still, despite
his
disdain for dwelling on Parkinson's, the former Rhodes Scholar says, with
a
smile in his eyes: "Well, you came out in the rain, so I'll dwell on it."

   Accelerating change?

   The revelation that Kinsley knew he had the disease as early as 1993
has
caused some of his admirers -- and there are many in the world of liberal
professional newsmakers and news spreaders -- to wonder how that
knowledge
affected his choices as a person and as a journalist.

   It wasn't, he says, what made him abandon his life out East. But it
may have
accelerated the process.

   That move "was a psychological response, not a physical or medical
one. I
mean, I might well have done it anyway. I was getting itchy anyway, but
this
made me really itchy. It makes you think, 'Do it now. You might not be
able to
do it later.' "

   Are there other things he now feels compelled by the disease to do
sooner
than later?

   "Well, I don't have to do them immediately," Kinsley responds quickly.

   He's right. It's not as if he's about to die tomorrow. Aside from the
softness of voice and a decrease in his typing speed, Kinsley says he's
not
experiencing many ill effects. He looks much the same as he did when he
was
regularly on television, though a slight beard has come to cover his
narrow face
and the circumference of his bookish eyeglass frames seems to have
shrunk. He is
quite slim, but he says he is about the same weight he was 30 years ago,
and
that his doctor recently told him to lose 5 pounds.

   Kinsley still swims off his dock, sometimes even in winter. He goes
snow
camping.

   Not bad for any 50-year-old, but certainly not bad for one suffering
from a
disease with no known cure.

   It is named for the English doctor James Parkinson, who in 1817
identified
something he called "Shaking Palsy." It turned out to be a progressive
disease
that damages a person's nervous system and causes tremors, difficulty in
moving
and rigidity. Now, thanks to medical advances and the slow pace of the
disease,
many patients have a normal life expectancy and, though their symptoms
may be
unpleasant or even debilitating, they are often more likely to die from
unrelated illnesses.

   About 1 million people in the United States suffer from Parkinson's,
most
getting it when they're over 50. Kinsley was 42 when he was diagnosed.

   Cloaked illness

   Five years after that diagnosis, a Seattle Times reporter interviewing
Kinsley for a story about the progress of Slate noticed that he looked
ill, and
asked about it. Kinsley replied that he felt fine.

   It's a type of encounter Kinsley had with increasing frequency as he
continued hiding his disease, even as it progressed.

   "Yeah, that was one of the downsides," he says. "I really don't think
-- I
mean, I tried not to lie to people. I really, really, really tried, and I
thought and still think that I succeeded in not lying to anyone who I was
dealing with as a journalist. I don't remember what I said to (the Times
reporter). My hope is that it wasn't too Clintonian."

   So why did he keep it a secret in the first place? Was he worried that
people
would assume, erroneously, that his abilities as a thinker and writer had
been
impaired?

   "Sure," he says.

   Was there anything else?

   "Isn't that enough?"

   Perhaps. But there was, in fact, more.

   "Disease makes people queasy. It's hard to maintain normal relations
with
someone you know very well or someone you're very close to who's got a
serious
medical problem. It can bring people closer together, I suppose. It can
also put
a shield between them. But, whatever, it just complicates it."

   Kinsley also firmly believes denial is a valid way to cope with a
slow,
progressive illness -- at least, to a point.

   "If you're trying to keep something a secret, you're going to be
suppressing
it. You obviously can't control it. But maybe you can at some level, to
some
degree. And if you're constantly thinking, 'I don't want to let it show,
I don't
want to let it show,' that might be good."

   He pauses for a second, thinking.

   "It might be bad, on the other hand, because when you're tense, that
might
make it worse. But it might be good, so, who knows."

   In any case, Kinsley eventually reached a personal point of
diminishing
returns on the denial strategy. A small number of people knew because he
had
told them. Others suspected something was very wrong.

   "I mean, it gets harder and harder as more people know to keep it a
secret.
Eventually, the advantages of keeping it a secret are outweighed by the
disadvantages. I think I hit that point."

   The advantages?

   "I don't have to talk about it. Mainly, you don't have to think about
it. You
don't have to look people in the eye and know that they know."

   And the disadvantages?

   "Lying."

   Telling the boss

   For a journalist and thinker, lying is problematic.

   One thing Kinsley always did, he said, was tell his employers about
his
disease.

   "I have always told my immediate boss," he says, and as he says this
the
phone rings. He springs up off the deep purple couch and strides into the
kitchen. Someone from Slate is calling about a story. As Kinsley talks
over the
phone, his voice seems louder, the Parkinson's whisper gone.

   He sits back down.

   What was the reaction from his bosses at Microsoft to his illness?

   "It's been perfect." His voice has softened again. "Never the
slightest
suggestion that this would have any effect on my employment."

   That hasn't always been the case. In 1998, Kinsley was offered the
editorship
of The New Yorker magazine -- one of the highest honors in the magazine
world.
He told the magazine's owner that he had Parkinson's, and a few hours
later the
offer was withdrawn.

   Kinsley refuses to say the offer was withdrawn directly because of his
disease, but he will say it left him with some hard feelings. The
magazine has
not commented on the matter.

   Kinsley says Parkinson's won't affect him as a journalist -- for
example, in
covering the controversy over stem-cell research, which some believe
could
provide a cure for Parkinson's.

   "Certainly not with respect to the stem-cell issue. It certainly has
had no
impact on my positions. ... Is it a conflict for you and me and everyone
else to
be writing about the war on terrorism when our lives may be at stake? We
have a
vested interest. It's an interest, but is it a conflict?"

   As a public figure with Parkinson's, Kinsley joins the likes of
Michael J.
Fox, Muhammad Ali and Janet Reno.

   Does he feel a responsibility to take on an activist role, lobbying
for more
research toward finding a cure as Fox has?

   "Yes, in a way I do, and then in a way I feel a responsibility not to.
I'm
not a huge obsessor about conflicts of interest, but I do think there are
certain limits."

   As a journalist, Kinsley worries that being associated with a cause
might
undermine his credibility. Also, as a commentator he doesn't want to
become
inextricably linked to a single issue.

   "I want people to pay attention when I'm writing about a lot of other
subjects. I've been writing about the capital-gains tax for 25 years and
have
had no impact whatsoever. But I hope that might change, and I don't want
people
to be thinking Parkinson's when they ought to be thinking capital-gains
tax."

   'A certain tolerance'

   A recent Washington Post article suggested Kinsley had "gone native"
after
being in Seattle for five years.

   "Well, you know, what does The Washington Post know about being a
native in
Seattle? I'm a Seattleite to The Washington Post, and I'm an East-Coaster
to
Seattleites."

   And what makes a Seattleite, according to the brainy East Coast
transplant?

   "Love of the outdoors. A certain tolerance. And kindness. I mean, this
is a
grotesque generality, but if you can't say this to The Seattle Times, who
can
you say this to? People are nicer out here."

   So is he staying?

   "I can't guarantee that this is going to be my home for the rest of my
life.
But I hope it will always be part of my home."

   Eli Sanders can be reached at 206-748-5815 or
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