Call it the year of lame excuses

So long, farewell and amen
2005 was also a year of wrenching transition in society as figures who defined their eras passed from the scene.

Millions of Catholics flocked to churches around the world to say goodbye to Pope John Paul II, the third-longest-reigning pontiff in history. During 26 years in the Vatican, John Paul was instrumental in the end of the Cold War and reunified the church after a decade of upheaval brought about by the reforms of the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65. A transformative political figure, the deeply conservative John Paul was embraced by liberal Catholics as warmly as he was by conservatives, helping ease the way for his successor, Benedict XVI, his conservative theological enforcer.

The mother of the civil rights movement, Rosa Parks, died in October, a half-century after she refused to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Ala. Somewhere up there, a seat’s been reserved for her up front.

Thirteen years after he proved that celebrity isn’t an incurable disease by walking away from “The Tonight Show,” almost never to be seen again, Johnny Carson died at 79. Today, Jay Leno occupies his chair, but not his throne as the king of late-night television.

Slide show   Farewells 2005: Pope, Johnny Carson, more The past year was a time to say goodbye to an array of people who touched our lives.

Peter Jennings died at 67, honored as an exponent of serious news on television and a passionate crusader for international reporting. Even though he never graduated from high school and flopped miserably as a co-anchor of ABC’s nightly news show in the 1960s, he worked his way back and, by the time he left the air in April, was the last of the old-style voice-of-God network anchors left standing.

Other important figures who died this year:

• Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who brought consistent conservative leadership, organization and snazzy Gilbert-and-Sullivan-style chevrons to the Supreme Court.
• Richard Pryor. American standup comedy is divided into two periods: Before Pryor and After Pryor.
• Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman to mount a serious major-party presidential campaign.
• Arthur Miller, who brought stream-of-consciousness naturalism to the American stage with “Death of a Salesman” and gave countless high school actors their starts with “The Crucible” — and who married Marilyn Monroe, to boot.
• Hunter S. Thompson, who is credited with committing some of the greatest and weirdest journalism of the 20th century and blamed for inspiring some of the worst by lesser-talented imitators. He blew his head off with his own gun, which is surely the only way it could have happened.
• George Kennan, whose creation of the U.S. policy of containment allowed the United States to beat the Soviet Union to the finish line.
• Jack Kilby, whose invention of the integrated circuit gave us computers, modern television and those annoying jerks who natter on into their cell phones in the HOV lane.

It sounded good at the time
The CIA leak investigation ground on, bringing the indictment of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, and the jailing of New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

They said it     No, really. We’re not kidding. — “This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. And having said that, all options are on the table.” — President Bush — “I’m telling you, folks, there’s a part of me that likes this.” — Rush Limbaugh on the kidnappings of peace activists in Iraq — “I think with a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court you can’t play, you know, hide the salami or whatever it’s called.” — Democratic Chairman Howard Dean — “I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God. You just rejected him from your city.” — the Rev. Pat Robertson after voters turned out the Dover, Pa., school board, which ordered schools to teach “intelligent design” — “I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.” — former Education Secretary William Bennett SOURCE: Associated Press, Reuters, About.com

At year’s end, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald impaneled a new grand jury to continue his investigation, leaving the fate of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove unresolved.

Quotation: “I’m not going to discuss an ongoing legal proceeding,” White House press secretary Scott McClellan said over and over, backtracking from his firm statement two years ago that Libby and Rove “assured me they were not involved in this.”

MORE FROM 2005 YEAR IN REVIEW

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