June 15, 2003
GOOD NIGHT, DAVID.
It would be disingenous of me to say that I was a fan of former anchor David Brinkley. But I was an admirer. I think there's a difference.
Brinkley was really the first person I could remember who was a smart-ass on TV in an official capapcity. I remember watching him and John Chancellor on the NBC Nightly News and just waiting for Brinkley to rotate his chair to an off-angle while reading news copy with his head slightly tilted and his chin elevated in mock haughtiness. He'd hunch a little, look up occasionally at the camera as if he was saying with his eyes, "Isn't the world a crock of shit?" and deliver some of his beautifully unique prose in his signature halting cadence.
I liked Chancellor's earnestness, but I admired Brinkley's "fuck you" delivery and no-bullshit demeanor. He came off smart and edgy and I thought that for a news man, it was incredibly cool. Chancellor was Paul McCartney to Brinkley's Lennon.
I think one of the reasons no one watches the political conventions anymore - beyond the fact that they are merely choreographed political masturbation, complete with confetti and balloons - is that we don't have Brinkley to pierce them in the side with a spear to deflate their distorted sense of import and relevence. Brinkley was like "Mystery Science Theater 3000" for political junkies. He'd watch it, see it, digest it and then skewer it with verbal flair and dead-on wit. All in the span of a few seconds.
So when I read the following passage in this story in the Washington Post by Tom Shales, I recognized the Brinkley I knew as a viewer while I was growing up. I wish that as a newsman I was as bold and forthright sometimes as he was:
Even when he was at his peak, Brinkley would occasionally be picked on by network brass for being too laid-back and casual on the air. Brinkley remembered once interviewing Lyndon B. Johnson in the White House when producer Fred W. Friendly, who didn't like what he was seeing, interrupted him.
"He came over and said to me, 'I want you to be more lively,' " Brinkley recalled. "And I said, 'Shut up.' That was the end of the discussion."