Barbara Walters has always seemed to be one of those people who is famous because she has a desperate need to be famous. Walters is close to eighty years old, and in one last sad effort to reclaim the spotlight for herself, she has pulled out what she must think is her ace card. With Oprah’s help Walters has gone public about an affair she had thirty years ago with Edward Brooke, when he was a senator from Massachusetts. Who cares?
Geraldo is another one who bugs me. Everything these people do is so obviously really about their insecure little selves, and not what they claim to be informing us about in their roles as pseudo-journalists. Why do they keep showing up, year after year?
Now that I’m on a roll, I met Ed Brooke once, when I was a reporter and he was running for re-election in 1978, only to lose to Paul Tsongas. I wasn’t particularly wowed by him. Brooke came across as having a solid politician’s false front. I also met John Kerry at the same time, when he was an assistant DA investigating claims Ed Brooke had made about his divorce. I forget the details. Hey, maybe Kerry was looking into rumors about the Walters affair! But my point is that Kerry was aloof, just as he’s been described all these years.
Somebody who I interviewed, who impressed me very much indeed, was Ted Kennedy. He would have been about 45 at the time. Kennedy sat me down, a nobody kid radio reporter, and for nearly half an hour he talked my ear off, about every issue that concerned him and every bill he was working on. He had every fact and argument and viewpoint about everything right at his fingertips. When it was time to go he got going, but when I had his attention I really had his undivided attention, and I can’t recall any other politician taking the time and making the effort to do that for me.
