Here's the extremelty candid and touching segment about his reactions after the suicide of his son.
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And on the particular night, he was drinking and speeding, I guess, afterwards down on Canal Road and the police chased him.
He tried to get away. Ran his car into a puddle. Stalled the car out. Got caught. He thought it was all over. He thought this was a ruinous development from which his life and career would not recover.
That was crazy.
He committed suicide.
Fortunately, for me, I was – I escaped the terrible burden of guilt that one might have when you think, if only I’d had a better relationship with him.
I had a wonderful relationship with him. And I didn’t – I didn’t have to look back and say, if only I’d done this or done that. I mean, it was – I had none of that, which was a tremendous relief.
The other thing was that a time like that, Brian, is when you find out what you really believe.
And I grew up in Washington. I went to St. Albans School nine years. Church school. Baptized and confirmed in the Episcopal church. I was a kind of nominal Christian all those years.
Suddenly this unspeakable tragedy hits. And at a moment like that you find out what you really believe.
And the one thing I recognized almost instantly was that I believed in God and I believed that God would come to my rescue.
And I remember I said to people and it was kind of a half in jest, but it – there was truth to it, that I kept expecting in the days after what happened to Sandy that the phone would ring. And I’d pick up the phone and the voice on the other one would say, this is God. This is what this was about, because it seemed so inexplicable.
And it seemed so undeserved for him, for me and for everyone else in the family. Well, obviously, nothing like that occurred, but something did occur.
Somewhere in the middle of that, I felt closer to God and to Christ than I had ever felt in my life, which is in a sense paradoxical. But there it was. And it was unmistakable.
And I got – I don’t think what the exact number was within about three weeks of his death, I had received in my mailbox, this is quite apart from any emails, and a reason I have a number in my head is that my assistant and I were sending out thank you responses to the people who wrote to me. The number within three weeks had hit 973.
Now, look, my program on Fox was just starting then.
BRIAN LAMB: 973 letters.
BRIT HUME: 973 letters, prayer cards, expressions by mail to me of sympathy, support and so on. I would go home at night and my mailbox would be crammed with them.
Sometimes, there’d be some on top of the mailbox. And I read everyone of them. Everyone of them. And I remember, I wept over some of them. And I – but I was enormously buoyed by this outpouring.
Now, think about this, Brian. I mean, my – Fox News was really kind of nowhere. This was 1998. We were just in business a couple years. We were mired deep in third place. The ratings for – we were doing 25,000, 30,000 viewers tops some nights. My show had just started. I’d been – had some people who knew of me from my days at ABC News, but I was--compared to where Fox News and the people on it are now, we were nowhere.
So, somehow, this event touched these people and somehow they found in them to respond. I consider it to be sent a miracle. And it was – and I, I mean, I just felt so buoyed by it. So supported. So loved. And I thought, thank you, God.
~~Very interesting interview .... PING!
This was a great interview. I caught probably the last half of it. Brit seems like a great guy, like your neighbor.
Thanks for the thread!
Brit is a wonderful MAN and a marvelous JOURNALIST and it
shows in every segment of his show. He is just the BEST
there is!
Thanks for this report...I had missed it on TV.
Very sad about his son...I didn’t know about his suicide. =\
Thanks for the thread.
Brian Lamb and Brit Hume are the best media guys on TV. Period.
God Bless CSPAN.
Great guy...and the best news man in the country...maybe the World.
Excellent interview. I watched it last night.
Brit Hume is a class act in every sense of the word. Special Report will not be the same without him.
Thanks for the ping Star! This is a phenomenal story, just phenomenal.A real inside look at Britt! What a great American.
I am really going to miss Brit Hume. I think you know why. Fair is so hard to find these days.
4 later
I think good interviews like this, and interviews by David Frost many years ago, can be true and revealing. I think Brit explained the origin, from his viewpoint, of Fox News, and I found that very interesting. I think his assessment of liberal bias and fairness (or lack thereof) are very insightful.
I have a greater appreciation, it grows from year to year, that the Pulitzer (and other prizes) are clubby awards given by liberals to liberals. Like the Nobel Peace prize, it is more of a dishonor than an honor.
His recounting of his son’s death by suicide was news to me. At the time of Sandy’s death, I read something that suggested a conspiracy and foul play. I thought another shoe might drop, but it never did. I guess this interview wraps it up for me.
Oh, my.
A real man, but we knew that.