Editing Eleanor Clift

{{short description|American political journalist, pundit, and author}}
{{use mdy dates|date=November 2022}}
{{use American English|date=November 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| name        = Eleanor Clift
| image       = File:Clift, Eleanor.jpg
| caption     = Clift in 1999
| birthname   = Eleanor Irene Roeloffs 
| birth_date  = {{Birth date and age|1940|07|07|mf=y}}
| birth_place = [[New York City]], U.S.
| death_date  = 
| death_place = 
| education   = 
| occupation  = Journalist
| spouse      = {{plainlist|
* {{marriage|William Brooks Clift Jr.|1964|1981|end=divorced}}
* {{marriage|Tom Brazaitis|1989|2005|end=died}}
}}
| children    = 3
| relations   = [[Montgomery Clift]] (brother-in-law)
| credits     = ''[[The Daily Beast]]''<br />''[[MSNBC]]'' <br />''[[The McLaughlin Group]]''
| website     = [http://eleanorclift.com/ eleanorclift.com]
}}
'''Eleanor Irene Clift''' (''[[née]]'' '''Roeloffs'''; born July 7, 1940)<ref name="evans">{{cite book |last=Evans |first=Michael |date=1985 |title=People and Power: Portraits from the Federal Village |location=New York |publisher=Harry N. Abrams |page=227 |isbn=0-8109-1481-6 |quote=Eleanor Irene Roeloffs Clift...July 7, 1940. Brooklyn, New York.}}</ref>  is an American political journalist, television pundit, and [[author]]. She is a contributor to [[MSNBC]] and blogger for ''[[The Daily Beast]]''.<ref>[http://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/eleanor-clift.html Eleanor Clift's blogger's page on ''The Daily Beast'']</ref> She is best known as a regular panelist on ''[[The McLaughlin Group]]''.<ref name=hws /> Clift is a board member at the [[IWMF]] (International Women's Media Foundation).<ref>IWMF website {{cite web |url=http://www.iwmf.org/staff.aspx |title=IWMF : International Women's Media Foundation - Board and Staff |access-date=2016-01-30 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100804163048/http://www.iwmf.org/staff.aspx |archive-date=2010-08-04}}</ref>

==Early years==
Eleanor Roeloffs was born in the New York City borough of [[Brooklyn]],<ref name="evans" /> the daughter of [[Germans|German]] immigrants from the island of [[Föhr]] in the [[North Sea]].<ref name="bookref1">{{cite book|last=Clift|first=Eleanor|title=Two Weeks of Life: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Politics|publisher=PublicAffairs|year=2009|page=39|isbn=978-0-465-01280-0}}</ref> She grew up in the [[Jackson Heights, Queens|Jackson Heights]] neighborhood of [[Queens]], where her parents ran a [[delicatessen]] in [[Sunnyside, Queens|Sunnyside]].<ref>Solomon, Deborah. [https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/magazine/02wwln-Q4-t.html "Questions for Eleanor Clift: Grande Dame"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', March 2, 2008. Accessed May 28, 2009. "Where are you from? I grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens, and my father had a deli, Roeloffs Deli, in Sunnyside."</ref> Clift was raised a [[Lutheran]].<ref name="clevelandref1">{{cite news|last=Norman|first=Michael|title=Eleanor Clift explores the personal and public sides of death in new memoir|work=The Plain Dealer|date=2008-04-02|url=http://www.cleveland.com/arts/index.ssf/2008/04/courtesy_of_eleanor_clifttom_b.html|access-date=2010-03-09}}</ref> She attended both [[Hofstra University]] and [[Hunter College]], but left both schools without a degree.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.respectability.org/2017/11/eleanor-clift-fellows/ |title=RespectAbility Board Member Eleanor Clift Talks About Her Journalism and Philanthropy Journey |last=Oweis |first=Zein |date=2017-11-27 |website=respectability.org  |access-date=2022-11-17 |quote=I did do an internship and I have never taken a journalism course in my life. In fact, I never even had a college degree...}}</ref>

==Journalism career==
Clift began her career in 1963 as a secretary at ''[[Newsweek]]'', and was one of the first female reporters to earn an internship from the secretary pool. Working out of Atlanta, Clift became the reporter assigned to cover the then-unlikely candidate, [[Jimmy Carter]]. Clift traveled with the campaign and reported from the road. After Carter's win, Clift became White House correspondent for ''[[Newsweek]]'' and has covered every presidential campaign for the magazine since 1976. When Newsweek merged with ''[[The Daily Beast]]'' in 2010, Clift stayed on to cover politics for the online publication.

==Broadcasting career==
She began a broadcast career on ''[[The Diane Rehm Show]]'' on [[WAMU]]-FM, [[Washington, D.C.]], as a Friday week-in-review panelist.  She became known to listeners for her good-natured acceptance of ribbing from other panelists and callers to the program.{{Citation needed|date=January 2009}}

She became{{when|date=January 2021}} a regular panelist on the nationally syndicated show ''[[The McLaughlin Group]]'', which she has compared to "a televised food fight".<ref name=hws>[http://www.hws.edu/news/speakers/transcripts/cliftpresforum.asp Press Forum]</ref>

Her role as a [[talk show]] panelist has led to appearances in movies. Clift played a panelist in ''[[Rising Sun (1993 film)|Rising Sun]]'' (1993) and appeared as herself in ''[[Dave (film)|Dave]]'' (1993), ''[[Independence Day (1996 film)|Independence Day]]'' (1996) and ''[[Getting Away with Murder (1996 film)|Getting Away with Murder]]'' (1996). She was portrayed by Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live.  She was also portrayed by actress Mary Ann Burger in the 2009 film ''[[Watchmen (2009 film)|Watchmen]]''.

In 2008, she wrote ''Two Weeks of Life: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Politics'', which intertwines the events of her own life and those of the nation concerning the [[Terri Schiavo]] case during a two-week period in March 2005. In it she examines the way people in the United States deal with death, publicity and personality.{{citation needed|date=January 2021}}

She was a keynote speaker at the 2012 [[Washington & Jefferson College]] Energy Summit, where the [[Washington & Jefferson College Energy Index]] was unveiled.<ref>{{cite web | title =Eisenhower and Clift Headline first W&J Energy Summit| work =W&J Magazine | publisher =[[Washington & Jefferson College]] | date =Summer 2012| page=11 | url =http://issuu.com/vanikdesign/docs/wj_mag_summer12 | format =PDF | access-date = December 16, 2012}}</ref>

Contributing to the anthology ''Our American Story'' (2019), Clift addressed the possibility of a shared American narrative and focused on America as a social movement, [[writing]], "[S]ocial movements are America's story, and they're my story as a woman born in the middle of the last century whose life was made measurably better amid these broad strokes of history."<ref>{{cite book |editor-last1=Claybourn |editor-first1=Joshua |editor-link1=Joshua Claybourn |title=Our American Story: The Search for a Shared National Narrative |date=2019 |publisher=Potomac Books |location=Lincoln, NE |isbn=978-1640121706 |pages=160–167 }}</ref>

===Honors===
*[[Hoover Institution]] William and Barbara Edwards Media Fellow September 16–22, 2002<ref>
{{cite web
 |url=http://www.hoover.org/fellows/by-title/media-fellows/2002 
 |title=William and Barbara Edwards Media Fellows by year 
 |access-date=2011-10-27 
 |publisher=[[Hoover Institution]] 
 |url-status=dead 
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111101000546/http://www.hoover.org/fellows/by-title/media-fellows/2002 
 |archive-date=2011-11-01 
}}
</ref>

==Personal life==

Clift married William Brooks Clift Jr. (1919–1986), the older brother of actor [[Montgomery Clift]], in 1964 with whom she had three sons.  They divorced in 1981.<ref name="povich2">{{cite book |last=Povich |first=Lynn |title=The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued Their Bosses and Changed the Workplace |date=2012 |publisher=PublicAffairs |isbn=978-1-61039-173-3 |location=New York |page=213}}</ref>

In 1989, Clift married Tom Brazaitis, a Washington columnist for ‘‘The Plain Dealer’’ in Cleveland, Ohio. They remained together until his death from kidney cancer in 2005.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Bernstein |first=Adam |date=2005-03-31 |title=Tom Brazaitis |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2005/03/31/tom-brazaitis/59de6fe0-58fa-45e0-bab0-d9e115247710/ |access-date=2025-05-02 |work=The Washington Post |language=en-US |issn=0190-8286}}</ref>

==Bibliography==
{{external media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?74534-1/war-without-bloodshed ''Booknotes'' interview with Clift and Brazaitas on ''War Without Bloodshed'', August 25, 1996], [[C-SPAN]] | video2 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?96244-1/war-without-bloodshed Presentation by Clift and Brazaitis on ''War Without Bloodshed'', December 2, 1997], [[C-SPAN]]| video3 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?158010-1/madam-president ''Washington Journal'' interview with Clift and Brazaitis on ''Madam President'', July 3, 2000], [[C-SPAN]]| video4 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?185239-1/election-2004 Discussion with Clift and Evan Thomas on ''Election 2004: How Bush Won and What You Can Expect in the Future'', January 20, 2005], [[C-SPAN]]| video5 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?204332-1/two-weeks-life Presentation by Clift on ''Two Weeks of Life: A Memoir of Love, Death and Politics'' at the National Press Club, March 17, 2008], [[C-SPAN]]| video6 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?306285-1/selecting-president Presentation by Clift on ''Selecting a President'', May 24, 2012], [[C-SPAN]]}}
* {{cite book | last=Clift | first=Eleanor | title=War Without Bloodshed: The Art of Politics | location=New York | publisher=Simon & Schuster | year=1996 | isbn=0-684-80084-5}}
* {{cite book | last=Clift | first=Eleanor | title=Madam President: Shattering the Last Glass Ceiling | location=New York | publisher=Scribner | year=2000 | isbn=0-684-85619-0 | url-access=registration | url=https://archive.org/details/madampresidentsh0000clif }}
* {{cite book | last=Clift | first=Eleanor | title=Founding Sisters and the Nineteenth Amendment | location=Hoboken | publisher=John Wiley & Sons | year=2003 | isbn=0-471-42612-1 | url=https://archive.org/details/foundingsistersn00clif }}
* {{cite book | last=Clift | first=Eleanor | title=Election 2004: How Bush Won and What You Can Expect in the Future | location=New York | publisher=PublicAffairs | year=2004 | isbn=1-58648-293-9 | url=https://archive.org/details/election2004howb00thom }}
* {{cite book | last=Clift | first=Eleanor | title=Two Weeks of Life: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Politics | location=New York | publisher=Basic Books | year=2008 | isbn=978-0-465-00251-1 | url=https://archive.org/details/twoweeksoflifeme00clif_0 }}
* Eleanor Clift and Matthew Spieler (2012). ''Selecting a President''. New York: Thomas Dunne Books. {{ISBN|978-1-250-00449-9}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== Further reading ==
* Clift, Eleanor, [http://www.newsweek.com/2013/09/27/magazine-was-eleanor-clift-her-50-years-newsweek-238004.html "The Magazine That Was: Eleanor Clift on Her 50 Years at Newsweek"], ''Newsweek'', September 27, 2013
* Clift, Eleanor, {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20121129105742/http://www.newsweekmemories.org/clift.html "The White House"]}}, ''newsweekmemories.org'' website

==External links==
{{Wikiquote|Eleanor Clift}}
*[http://eleanorclift.com/ Eleanor Clift official website]
*{{IMDb name|166701|Eleanor Clift}}
* {{C-SPAN|3471}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clift, Eleanor}}
[[Category:1940 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:American columnists]]
[[Category:American women columnists]]
[[Category:American political commentators]]
[[Category:American political writers]]
[[Category:American people of German descent]]
[[Category:Television personalities from Brooklyn]]
[[Category:American women television personalities]]
[[Category:Hoover Institution Edwards Media Fellows]]
[[Category:Hunter College alumni]]
[[Category:Newsweek people]]
[[Category:Journalists from Brooklyn]]
[[Category:People from Jackson Heights, Queens]]
[[Category:Hofstra University alumni]]
[[Category:Journalists from Queens, New York]]