Remembering Brudnoy

Rick Brookheiser over at the Corner writes a nice tribute to David Brudnoy, the greatest of the radio talkers.

"An interview with David was so much an element of the gold standard of author tours that it made its way into the fiction of John Updike.... David was smart, witty, prepared, informed—the perfect questioner."

Read the whole thing here.

It brought back memories of long evening drives between Pennsylvania and Maryland when "She Who Must Not Be Named" and I would tune in to Boston's WBZ and listen to Brudnoy. When he died none of the other talent could replace him and we drifted away. Now we listen to books on tape..., well, actually books on an I-pod we hook up to the radio.

He was invariably polite, knowledgable, astute, and well-informed even when dealing with the most inflammatory subjects and callers. As the Boston Globe put it,

Mr. Brudnoy's show [was] an island of idiosyncrasy on the airwaves. Favoring cerebration rather than shouting, he was the talk-radio host for listeners who didn't like talk radio. Mr. Brudnoy emphasized ideas and issues over personalities and name-calling.

In the midst of today's shouters, as we witness the coarsening quality of political discourse in this most miserable of election years, it is good to remember back to a day, not so long ago, when a civilized conservative voice could dominate a major media market.