When Charles W. "Chuck" Colson died last week, the headlines screamed about the death of President Richard Nixon's "hatchet man," who tumbled from his perch as White House chief counsel after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice in 1974. Some squeezed in fleeting references to the way Colson spent the second half of his life, after serving seven months in federal prison for his role in the Watergate affair.
Yet even the mainstream media obituaries that cited Colson as a "prison reformer" and "evangelical leader" analyzed his life stages through a political lens: Colson as Machiavellian Nixon adviser; Colson as advocate for more humane criminal justice policies; Colson as crusader for socially conservative causes.
Read Full Article »