In Love? with Sharyl Attkisson

Sharyl Attkisson Kozaki

She came to visit us at Discovery Channel when we were nobodies, and she was in her first (CNN) correspondent job, before then making her way with the big networks.

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Now, Sharyl Attkisson's longtime employer CBS News is "irked" by her aggressive coverage on Benghazi, of which the White House and the HRC 2016 Election Committee are understandably wary.


Although we did not undertake any journalistic projects with Sharyl at the time, nor later, then (1991), she certainly made an impression.  Friends Steve Cheskin, Danny Salerno and Mark Kozaki in particular behaved as though they were smitten with Sharyl, almost to point of incapacitation.  Intrepid Mark petitioned her later at her CNN offices for pictures, and we all received them by mail with gracious thank you notes.

For all I know....

George Schultz: Marking History with the Secretary of State

NOT EVER

In May, 1993 (Bush 41 administration) as my wife and I waited with hundreds of others in line to enter the brand-newly opened Holocaust Museum, we had our line cut by statesman and former Reagan-era Secretary of State George Schultz.  Schultz had done a solid job as Secretary of State, supporting a president with an ambitious agenda for world change, at an important time, and was now between assignments.

We'd arrived early to be admitted when the doors opened.  It was about 20 minutes to opening time when up to the curb pulled a big black town car.  Out popped a couple of muscle-men, one springing to the door handle to release Schultz who strode purposefully right past us and into the museum.  What I recall was the brilliant shine of his black power-shoes.  He stomped right by and into the museum, getting a twenty minute head start on We, The Rabble.

. . . ?

The museum was then - and is now - a breathtaking monument to human strength, faith, soul, and perseverance.  I recommend it to anyone unafraid to confront the worst, and eager to be uplifted by the best, in human nature.

One of the memorable exhibits is a railroad transport car, through which one passes to enter a huge space that is overfilled with the confiscated shoes salvaged by the Nazis from the victims they murdered.  The room in which this huge trove of shoes was piled smelled of leather and death; it was overpowering.  Never Again.

We have come a long way in this country and the world, with Holocaust scholarship.

I feel privileged to live now in a town with a university that supports the endeavor of Holocaust study with the resources and collection of the recently opened the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide and Memory Studies.

I never got to speak with Mr. Secretary - he blew right by us.  But twenty years later, I still recall the impression that his shoes left.

George Schultz