The Most Trusted Man in America

by Pa Rock
Baby Boomer

Walter Cronkite, the anchor of the CBS Evening News throughout the 1960's and 1970's passed away this evening. The 92-year-old former television journalist was known to be near death for the past few days, so the cable networks were ready. MSNBC has been airing a Walter Fest all evening.

The recognition is good, and it is well deserved. They are running old clips of his announcement that JFK had been shot, and minutes later somberly telling America of the President's death in Dallas. There has been footage aired of him tonight with every President from Eisenhower through Clinton, and we have heard his famous on-air editorial in which he concluded that the Vietnam war was not winnable.

I remember all of that stuff because I was in high school and college during those years, and was already a budding news junkie. There were only three television networks at that time, and much of America got their daily dose of national news from Walter Cronkite. I think that my most vivid memory was of the color footage of the Vietnam combat and the daily body counts that Cronkite gave - bringing the war right into our living rooms.

Walter Cronkite was a part of everyone's family. He was giving us the news while we kicked our shoes off after a hard day at work or at school. Through his steady baritone voice we learned what was going on in the world as we set the table for dinner (families used to eat dinner around a table), and settled in for our evening meal. Shortly after retiring from CBS in the early 1980's, Cronkite was voted as the most trusted man in America by a national poll. - and the results of that poll were accepted as an obvious fact by a broad spectrum of the American public.

Even this old news hound learned something new about Cronkite from tonight's television coverage. Dan Rather, his replacement at CBS, told Rachel Maddow that Cronkite had flown into France on a glider shortly after D-Day. Hugh Downs, another news ancient, was interviewed over the phone and quoted Cronkite as saying that a person had to be a liberal in order to be a good journalist. (Need proof? Think of Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Glen Beck, and Rush Limbaugh. There's not an ounce of credibility or journalistic integrity in the lot!)

Walter Cronkite was a native of St. Joseph, Missouri, and still had family ties in the Show Me State. I know that because several years ago I was spending the evening with my friend Millie Crossland, a social worker and political maven in Kansas City. Millie was working in the office of Kay Barnes, the mayor of Kansas City, and her desk was located just outside of the mayor's inner-sanctum. We were in the office that night when Millie took me in to see where Mayor Barnes did her work. There, in the middle of the mayor's desk, was a small framed photo of Walter Cronkite. When I asked about it, Millie told me that he and Mayor Barnes were cousins.

Not surprisingly, no one anticipated the passing of Walter Cronkite in the 2009 Pa Rock's Dead Pool. In fact, most of the entrants were too young to have any clue as to who he was. That is too bad, because the craggy old journalist was, for a very long time, the face of American television news - and perhaps the face of America itself. He will be missed by the Boomers and the hearty few left of the World War II generation. An era is slipping away.

The Hand on David Brooks' Thigh

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

I'm not sure if New York Times' columnist David Brooks meant to make the news himself this week or not, but make it he did. In an interview with John Harwood and Norah O'Donnell on MSNBC Brooks was prattling on about how sad and needy many politicians are when he suddenly blurted out this gem:

"I sat next to a Republican senator once at dinner, and he had his hand on my inner thigh the whole time."

Harwood snapped awake with "What?" And when O'Donnell quit laughing and was finally able to focus on reporting, she asked "Which one?" But Mr. Brooks was not one to get groped and tell. Later O'Donnell, again laughing, managed to ask Brooks if he drank his lunch before the interview. He denied that, but his presentation shouted otherwise! Maybe after one more wet lunch he will begin to name names. One can only hope!

The affable Mr. Brooks did not indicate why he let the senator's hand remain on his inner thigh the entire evening, leaving one to assume that a.) he expected to get something in return - such as ready access to the senator - or, b.) he liked it.

The interview is all over the internets. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out. It's hysterical!

Andrew Sullivan, an openly gay writer, had this to say about the incident in his column, The Daily Dish: "Mercifully, I avoid dinners with Republican senators. It's usually far too gay a scene for me."

Would somebody please pass the Family Values - and some of that hypocrisy sauce?

Overheard on the Treadmill

by Pa Rock
Shameless Eavesdropper

Saturday, or perhaps Sunday, while I was resolutely marching to Pretoria on the treadmill at the gym, I had the pleasure of listening to two ladies who were talking at least as fast as they were walking. Well, it wasn't that pleasurable, but it did turn out to be interesting.

If I were a cop I would have typed this chatty duo as a couple of middle-aged soccer moms. Instead of talking kids or soccer, however, they were focused on politics. The first topic on the table was abortion. Arizona is a fairly conservative state, and I expected their opinions to be somewhat to the right of John McCain - and one was. The one on the left felt that it should be a woman's decision, while the other, obviously a good friend, felt that God was in charge of women's bodies - at least after conception. Their conversation was animated, but far short of the intensity level that would have arisen on MSNBC or Fox in a panel discussion on the same subject.

They found themselves agreeing on the next topic of conversation: President Obama. As soon as his name was mentioned, I was anticipating an explosion of vitriol, at least from the one who was so negative on the subject of abortion. Surprisingly, however, they both liked Obama - and for the same reason. They talked about him being a family man and how nice it was that he sat down with his family for breakfast and dinner.

Now I think that I have a sense of why the President's approval rating is above seventy percent. His occupation (politician) and his race are both seen as secondary to his warm presentation as a caring and involved husband and father. There will be many who disagree with his politics and economics, but everyone has a sense of what constitutes a good family man, and Barack Obama is meeting that standard.

A Good Exit

by Pa Rock
Obituariest

Tim Russert died yesterday. The NBC newsman was fifty-eight, two years younger than me. Any time death comes to someone younger than me, it sets me ruminating on the meaning of life and the importance of recognizing happiness when it is swirling all around.

NBC and MSNBC are the outlets where I get all of my television news (well, 90% - BBC also enters into the mix), and Russert's presence, especially during this election year, was downright ubiquitous. When my radio news outlet, PBS, told me yesterday that Russert had died, I felt a very real loss.

NBC Nightly News last night was a wall-to-wall tribute to Tim Russert, with no other news even being mentioned. MSNBC also dedicated the entire evening to remembrances of him. They talked about his wife and son (Maureen and Luke), and his father - Big Russ of Tim's best selling book, Big Russ and Me. Tom Brokaw told of Russert putting Big Russ in an assisted living home just nine days prior, and the emotional impact that had on Tim. There was video of the flags in Tim's hometown of Buffalo, New York, flying at half-staff. They aired condolence statements from political formidables like President Bush, Barack Obama, John McCain, and even Ethel Kennedy.

There were three things that stood out about Tim Russert in all of the stirring remembrances: his love of family, his unwavering Catholic faith, and his love of politics. His last days, it seems, were a beautiful conflux of all three. Tim's son, Luke, had just graduated from Boston College and his parents took him on a trip to Ireland and Italy as a graduation gift. While in Rome, two days prior to Russert's death, they had an audience with the Pope. Russert left his family in Rome and rushed back to the United States to prepare for Sunday's broadcast of Meet the Press. He was working on voice-overs for the Sunday show when he collapsed in his office. Several speakers remarked that Russert's love of politics was so intense, that he often said to co-workers, "Can you believe they're paying us to do this!"

Tim Russert was a busy and happy man when he died. I can only hope that is the way that death will find me.

Meeting David Wilson

MSNBC presented a major event last night, a film that every person in America who has the capacity for rational thought needs to see. It was called Meeting David Wilson. David A. Wilson is a 28-year-old black man from New Jersey with a passion for exploring and understanding his culture, to include illuminating his family's life in America. Through careful research he was able to locate the plantation where his family, then slaves, had acquired the surname Wilson from their masters. Further research lead him to find a contemporary descendant of his family's white masters, David B. Wilson, a 62-year-old restaurateur in North Carolina. The two David Wilsons joined together to explore their past and to talk extensively on the subject of race in America.

This film was amazingly well done. The two Davids met at the old North Carolina plantation house which had been abandoned since the 1950's. Later David A. Wilson fought his way through brush and brambles and succeeded in locating one slave cabin that was still standing. As he explored the barely standing shanty, it was unclear whether David was absorbing his ancestors, or they were absorbing him. It was beautifully done.

There was an engrossing segment where David A. Wilson's extended family of one hundred plus members met David B. Wilson's wife, children, and grandchildren. They spent a day picnicking and getting acquainted, and attended a church service together where the two Davids sat next to each other while taking communion.

David A. Wilson had his DNA tested as a part of this project to see if he was related by blood to the white Wilsons (he wasn't) and to learn where in Africa his family had originated. He learned from that test that his roots were in Ghana. He traveled to Ghana and saw firsthand the prison where his ancestors were kept before being sent in shackles to America. In one of the most moving segments of the film, David told the ghosts of his ancestors in that prison that he was there to let them know that their prayers had been answered and their descendants had finally achieved freedom and dignity.

This film premiered to a packed house at Howard University in Washington, DC. Howard University is a predominately black institution of higher learning that produces more black doctoral degrees than any other university in America. There was a raucous standing ovation for the film as it concluded, followed by ninety minutes of a panel discussion among prominent individuals who discussed the film and its implications. The panel was hosted by NBC news anchor Brian Williams and included a wide range of individuals, both black and white.

The panelist whose words touched me the most was Malaaka Compton-Rock, the wife of comedian Chris Rock. She is a social activist in a poor section of Brooklyn. When the topic of reparations for slavery came up, she commandeered the conversation and lobbied hard for allocating more money toward educating black youth and providing libraries and computer labs equivalent to those that most white youth take for granted.

Every child needs access to good libraries, and all libraries (and schools, and churches) need to have a copy of Meeting David Wilson. If we are truly to understand one another, the process must begin in childhood - and this film is a good place to start the conversation.