Goodbye, Mr. Koppel

Ted Koppel left, I feel somewhat remiss that I listened to all the stupid jokes on the other networks, he provided some of the best commentary on the events of the day, and quite frankly, perhaps some of the best available statesmanship during the Iranian hostage crisis, which led to the "minor" character of the "Texas Peerage" Mr. Ross Perot, who got his people out with help from the Canadians, running as a third party candidate for President. Mr. Koppel always added a bit of charm to the end of the day and that night we should not go so easily into. My cousin (Dad being youngest of eleven, cousin someone about as old as he) George Murray started in film editing then by chance, directing "Huntley and Brinkley" before producing NBC Nightly News From New York and later 1976 convention coverage for CBS. Edwin Newman read at his eulogy in the UN Chapel, a letter canceling investigative journalists in Vietnam interviewing the "common soldier" which he had been, a US Army Captain in Korea, where I had had an uncle who did two tours. Mysterious "Higher Ups" had cancelled the long investigation. Mr. Koppel reminds me of the character and intelligence that TV journalism can have and I hope will have in the future. However, with "embedded" baloney, TV cameras only allowed clandestinely up and over the Embassy wall in "Desert Storm" and Peter Jennings walking around a world map with children by his side during an "allied" expedition, and the current Executive branch expeditionary forces (like those that put the original Shah in Iran in power, by General Schwartzkopf's father, also in charge of the Federal case of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping) I wonder sometimes how much information we really actually will ever get.