John Boehner and John Dickerson

I gained enormous respect for Speaker John Boehner in these last days. During Boehner’s recent interview with John Dickerson, who has replaced Bob Schieffer as the new host of Face the Nation, he told the truth about the rabid right wing who is harming his Party and our country through lies and distortion. Boehner became a profile of courage in my eyes.  John Dickerson’s mother, Nancy Dickerson, was the first woman correspondent for CBS News. She was also an associate producer of Face the Nation, including the very first broadcast of the show in 1954. I knew her when I worked for the Washington Bureau of CBS News. She was a true pioneer, and no one worked harder.  Nancy would be so proud of her son!  Her book. Among Those Present, published in 1976, is a fascinating read.  John Dickerson’s book about her, On Her Trail, published in 2006, is also a truthful and marvelous read. In a 2006 interview with TIME, Dickerson said about his mother, “I owe her more gratitude than I every expressed and more sympathy than I ever demonstrated.” John Dickerson, who grew up in DC at Merrywood, the former home of Jackie and Lee Bouvier, is the political director for CBS News and chief political correspondent for Slate magazine. He is a grad of DC’s Sidwell Friends.