John Treen, a coronavirus victim, lost to David Duke but won respect

The life of John Treen, who died last week of the coronavirus at age 94, is an example of how even fair and accurate headlines can nonetheless fail to do justice to their subjects.

Treen’s obituary headlines will rightly identify him as the brother of a governor (David Treen of Louisiana) and as the only man ever to lose an election to neo-Nazi David Duke. But those headlines give short shrift to John Treen’s life of work as a stalwart of the Republican Party in his state for more than 70 years.