Cronkite

Maybe some other time I'll talk about my own feelings about the obligation journalists have to the public in a democracy, an obligation no less real for being so comprehensively betrayed. But the man had dignity, and I can't help think how sharply his dignity contrasts with the clownish unseriousness of so many—most, really—public figures today. It's an interesting coincidence that David Brooks wrote about dignity  and mentioned a few people you've heard of recently "who simply do not know how to act."

There are people of integrity and serious purpose in public life these days. But there's one less on the planet. So I guess we should value the remaining ones more, for being that much rarer.