I always enjoyed Jack Germond's contributions to the McLaughlin Group. He always coughed so much, though, that I was in perpetual fear that he'd hack up a lung one day, right there on camera. He wrote a book that I've always wanted to read:
Fat Man Fed Up: How American Politics Went Bad.
This is the gist, from Publisher's Weekly: "Tackling everything from empty campaign rituals and deceptive TV ads to misleading polls and shallow news coverage, rotund political pundit Germond (
Fat Man in a Middle Seat) holds forth on political ills. Drawing on 50 years in Washington, he traces a pattern of decline in substance, civility and integrity among politicians and those who write about them, and spares no one, including voters."
This was in 2004. I wonder what he'd say now.
