Political satirist won Pulitzer

The columnist lived a year after he refused dialysis treatments.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Art Buchwald, the Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist, made a career out of skewering Washington's elite, then won even wider fame when he chose to let himself die rather than fight for every ounce of life. Now he's had the last laugh.
Buchwald died of kidney failure at home Wednesday, surrounded by family, nearly a year after he stunned them by rejecting medical treatments aimed at keeping him alive. As it turned out, he lived another year instead of the mere weeks he was given by doctors. He was 81 when he died.
The political satirist went out with a twist:
"Hi, I'm Art Buchwald and I just died," he announced with a grin, in a video posted on The New York Times Web site. Buchwald recorded the video interview last summer, to be shown after his death.
Buchwald said his months of dying were the time of his life. Neither he nor his doctors could explain why he kept living so long after he checked into a hospice last February, certain at the time that the end was near. "I have to thank my kidneys," he told The Associated Press last year.
So, as he did during a half-century career that touched two continents, Buchwald decided to make the most of every last minute.
In his last year
He held court daily in the parlor of his hospice room as friends streamed in to say goodbye. He resumed his twice-weekly column. When it came time to leave the hospice, he spent the summer at his home on Martha's Vineyard, Mass. He wrote "Too Soon to Say Goodbye," a book about the experience, and worked book parties in Washington and New York from his wheelchair.
In a goodbye column written for posthumous publication, Buchwald said he was at ease.
"What's interesting is that everybody has his or her own opinion as to how you should go out," he wrote. "All my loved ones became very upset because they thought I should brave it out -- which meant more dialysis.
"But here is the most important thing: This has been my decision. And it's a healthy one."
Buchwald is survived by son Joel Buchwald, of Washington; daughters Jennifer Buchwald, of Roxbury, Mass., and Connie Buchwald Marks, of Culpeper, Va.; sisters Edith Jaffe, of Bellevue, Wash., and Doris Kahme, of Delray Beach, Fla., and Monroe Township, N.J., and five grandchildren.
A memorial service was being planned for Washington. Buchwald is to be interred at the Vineyard Haven Cemetery in Martha's Vineyard, where his wife is buried.
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