David Brinkley

Although the Election Night '96 dust-up in which Brinkley unfairly trashed Bill Clinton may have momentarily obscured it, the truth is he's one of the most insightful political commentators ever to appear regularly on television. He's also had tremendous timing: after some short stints at small newspapers in little Southern towns, Brinkley became NBC's White House correspondent in 1943, and after FDR, went on to cover ten other presidents. (He became particularly friendly with LBJ.) In the process, Brinkley became an expert on the folkways of Washington, D.C. As reported here, when Brinkley was preparing for the broadcast of the first moon landing, he asked the director of NASA about the significance of the event. "David," came the reply, "if this all works I can get Congress to raise my budget to $20 billion next year."