My Weekend Breakfast Companion is Gone...

That would be Daniel Schorr, longtime NPR commentator who I have been listening to for decades (he joined NPR as a correspondent in 1985 and I was listening to it already when I was in high school, so the times match up fairly closely).

Lots of tributes have been made to him the last few days on a variety of NPR new shows (he appeared on most of them). Strange that I got sick of all the Michael Jackson tributes, but I am not tired of hearing about Schorr. Guess I feel a much closer connection with Schorr so I like hearing more about him. The other thing that might be making it work is that most of the people reporting on it are his friends and colleagues making it much more personal that most coverage.

Two of my favorite Schorr moments they talked about. First, was the time when he was reading Nixon's famous Enemies list live for CBS News. He got down to number 17 and (surprise) read his own name!

The second one of my favorites was related to that. Nixon used the FBI to investigate Schorr under the pretense that Schorr was being considered for a government job. Schorr met Nixon many years later and went to talk to him. (I am paraphrasing the following since I haven't found the transcript yet). Schorr said, "I don't know if you remember me..." He was cut off by Nixon who said, "Daniel Schorr. I considered hiring you for a job once!" Talk about chutzpah!

And to top it off, he was friends with (and even peformed with) Frank Zappa.

I will miss your commentaries.