http://terencefsmith.com Notes on the news, those who make it and those who break it. Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:17:13 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en FAREWELL, JACK There was a memorial today for Jack Nelson, the great civil rights reporter who served as Washington Bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times for 21 years and was a familiar face and voice on Washington Week in Review on PBS. It was an extraordinary gathering that will be ... http://terencefsmith.com/?p=85 WALTER AND DON First, Walter Cronkite, dead last month at 92. Now Don Hewitt, gone today at 86. It is being described as the end of an era at CBS News. Of course, the Cronkite-Hewitt era at CBS ended years ago. In their day, CBS News was truly a world-wide news-gathering ... http://terencefsmith.com/?p=84 The worlds of journalism and literature lost two of the good ones over the weekend. Walter Cronkite and Frank McCourt shared some of the same qualities: a sure sense of who they were, what they were about and what they wanted to accomplish. Walter came by his inner compass early ... http://terencefsmith.com/?p=83 OBAMA AND THE CHESAPEAKE BAY President-Elect Barak Obama has been famously channeling Abraham Lincoln as he prepares for his inauguration. This weekend, he’ll take a train, as Lincoln did, from Philadelphia to Washington. Next Tuesday, he’ll be sworn in on the same bible that Lincoln used and enjoy a ... http://terencefsmith.com/?p=82 The most remarkable thing about Barack Obama’s remarkable campaign was his personal consistency. In his victory speech last night before 100,000 cheering fans in Chicago’s Grant Park, he was the same composed, confident, understated, serious Barack Obama who came out of political nowhere to win the Iowa caucuses. That personal ... http://terencefsmith.com/?p=81 CORNELL CAPA When the great photographer Cornell Capa died at 90 last week, the obituaries said he covered conflicts from Latin America to the Middle East, including the 1967 Six Day War between Israel and her Arab neighbors. What the obits didn’t describe was the pivotal moment when ... http://terencefsmith.com/?p=80 Rooney, our elegant, black-and-white Borzoi, or Russian wolfhound, is dead. At age five. From bone cancer. A terrible conclusion, by any description. Not big news, perhaps, but it is to me. He was the most free-spirited, acrobatic, energetic, sunny, enthusiastic, delightful, downright funny dog . Never met a person ... http://terencefsmith.com/?p=79 When five former secretaries of state – three from Republican administrations and two from Democratic – sit down to give foreign policy advice to the next President in the midst of two wars and a heated campaign, sweet reason and unanimity is not guaranteed. Include polar opposites like Henry Kissinger ... http://terencefsmith.com/?p=78 Two of the best practitioners of the English language died this week: William F. Buckley Jr. and W.C. Heinz. They could not have been more different writers. Bill Buckley delighted in the complexities of the language; his erudite phrasing was over-the-top, but entertaining. Often he was just trying to score points ... http://terencefsmith.com/?p=77 “It is time to get real – get real about how we actually win this election,” Hillary Clinton told an audience in New York this week. “it is time to get real about the challenges facing America.” “Get real,” is her new mantra. The unspoken subtext is “don’t ... http://terencefsmith.com/?p=76