This headline is wretched even by New York Post Post standards.
[Via Phil.]
Amanda has a conflicted but clear-eyed post about Ike's passing -- as she says, it is curious that someone who was "just one of many, many, many men of genius in history who was also a violent, wife-beating nightmare of a person — will be one of the few remembered more for the evil in him than the beauty." Unlike his contemporary, James Brown, Ike's musical legacy became completely obscured by his penchant for domestic violence. Rather than being remembered as the father of rock and roll, he effectively became Wife Beater Number One. No doubt this has mostly to do with the fact that the person he was beating on all those years wasn't some anonymous woman with no public presence of her own -- she was his musical partner, a star in her own right long before she left him. But Tina's best and most lasting work remains the sides she cut with her husband, a great musician and awful human being. It's not like the former excuses the latter, obviously. But it shouldn't erase it, either.
UPDATE: Jon Pareles obit (NYT).
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