I met President Gerald Ford while working at KMIR-TV in Palm Springs. The event was held at the home of a wealthy supporter in Thunderbird Heights, high above Rancho Mirage. It was one of those orchestrated press gatherings, but Ford made it feel different. As he made his way down a line of reporters—and this lowly cameraman—he didn’t just shake...

We have survived crises before. However, the events we are now facing have brought about an unimaginable chain reaction. This is not the America many of us grew up with and loved. We’ve faced down bullies before, but these current threats come in a different form: deceit, corruption, unreason, and disease; not just disease from a deadly virus, but an...

Under a cloud of simmering fear, Senator Joseph McCarthy, absent any real evidence, announced to the American public that communists were working inside the federal government. During 1954’s Senate hearings investigating the Wisconsin Senator’s blatant character assassinations, one exchange was particularly noteworthy. Following McCarthy’s accusation that counsel for the committee, Joseph Welch, placed a member and communist from his own...