Friday night’s PBS News Hour tribute to former presidential adviser and former News Hour “conservative voice” David Gergen, who died July 10 at the age of 83, demonstrates how mild, center-left political personas have long been the only flavor of "conservatism" that taxpayer-funded PBS can tolerate. (And if the descriptions of Gergen reminds you of another journalist playing the “conservative” role on PBS these days, read on.)
Co-anchor Amna Nawaz set up fellow anchor Geoff Bennett’s “remembrance.”
Amna Nawaz: And we have a passing of note to share. Presidential adviser and former News Hour contributor David Gergen has died at 83 after being diagnosed with Lewy body dementia. Throughout his career, Gergen served four presidents, both Democrats and Republicans, and he spent many Friday nights offering his insights and analysis right here on The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.
Starting in 1984, Gergen, an editor-at-large at U.S. News & World Report, served as the “conservative” voice on political discussions on the News Hour, then known as The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. In 1987 he and liberal Washington Post columnist Mark Shields became the show’s Friday night political commentary team, a pairing that lasted until May 1993 when Gergen left to become a White House adviser – for Democratic president Bill Clinton.
A 1993 profile by Washington Post journalist Michael Kelly claimed Gergen was an adviser to then-presidential candidate Clinton by early 1992. That was while Gergen was serving as the ostensible conservative voice on the NewsHour.
Gergen’s obituary in the Washington Post called him a PBS “stalwart” and “gentle sparring partner of the center-left commentator Mark Shields on The NewsHour in the late 1980s and early 1990s.” The "gentle sparring" is probably making it sound tougher than it was.
From co-anchor Geoff Bennett’s remembrance:
Geoff Bennett: On Friday evenings, David Gergen could be found respectfully sparring on PBS with his seatmate Mark Shields about the week in politics.
An archive clip of Gergen offering mild criticism of Jesse Jackson followed.
Bennett: Starting in 1984, David was a fixture on the News Hour for several years as the inaugural conservative voice on the program's Friday political analysis segments.
Here’s a sample of Gergen’s “conservative voice” -- an August 28, 2008 quote from Gergen, then a CNN analyst, following Obama’s Democratic National Convention speech. It was nominated for the Media Research Center’s “Media Messiah Award” at the DisHonors Awards ceremony of 2009: “In many ways it was less a speech than a symphony. It moved quickly, it had high tempo, at times inspiring, then it became more intimate, slower, all along sort of interweaving a main theme about America’s promise, echoes of Lincoln, of King, even of Reagan and of Kennedy....It was a masterpiece.”
Bennett summarized Gergen’s career in the Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton administrations before again praising his mildness:
Bennett: ….he transitioned to journalism, eventually serving as chief editor for U.S. News & World Report and offering his sober and measured political commentary on PBS and later a number of other news outlets, most recently as a senior analyst for CNN.
Veteran PBS reporter Judy Woodruff also praised Gergen’s political positioning in the milquetoast middle, certainly not a "conservative voice."
Judy Woodruff: I can't imagine where David Gergen would fit on the spectrum today. He'd be somewhere in the middle, and that's a disappearing act....
Gergen’s journalistic trajectory may remind you of the present-day’s Friday political discussions on the PBS News Hour, ostensibly involving a liberal and conservative but actually involving two Trump-haters, one (David Brooks) slightly less liberal than the other (Jonathan Capehart). Brooks himself underlined that very point in his own Gergen tribute on Friday.
David Brooks: ….And so he was, like, almost out of another era of Washington, of people who serve both parties, who do it for national service. And then he was a centrist, a good PBS conservative like me. [Laughter]
“Good PBS conservative” Brooks proved the point with a new article in The Atlantic magazine, “Why Do So Many People Think Trump Is Good?”
You can contact your Senators about defunding PBS and NPR at our site DefundPBSNPR.org.
This unwittingly revealing episode was brought to you in part by Consumer Cellular.
A transcript is available, click “Expand.”
PBS News Hour
7/11/25
7:37:59 p.m. (ET)
Amna Nawaz: And we have a passing of note to share.
Presidential adviser and former "News Hour" contributor David Gergen has died at 83 after being diagnosed with Lewy body dementia. Throughout his career, Gergen served four presidents, both Democrats and Republicans, and he spent many Friday nights offering his insights and analysis right here on "The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour."
Geoff Bennett has this remembrance.
David Gergen, Former Presidential Adviser: I cannot remember a nicer man having a rockier start to his presidency. These guys are running a ship that's sinking fiscally. Jim, there are ways to speak out and there are ways to speak out, as you well know.
Jim Lehrer, Co-Founder and Former Anchor, "PBS NewsHour": And Gergen and Shields.
Geoff Bennett: On Friday evenings, David Gergen could be found respectfully sparring on PBS with his seatmate Mark Shields about the week in politics.
David Gergen: We ought to appreciate Jesse Jackson for all that he has done, but we ought to be able to separate out the fact that this remarkable Black American has gone so far and done so well, and that's terrific, from what his positions are. And his positions do, in fact, not represent the mainstream for many Americans.
Geoff Bennett: Starting in 1984, David was a fixture on the "News Hour" for several years as the inaugural conservative voice on the program's Friday political analysis segments.
David Gergen: Represents radicalism.
Geoff Bennett: It was his first foray into television news.
David Gergen: I was interested mainly in your book.
Geoff Bennett: He also offered his perspective on a range of issues from religion to the arts in a segment known as "The Gergen Dialogue."
David Gergen: The beach, is there any other spot on earth that holds as much fascination for man?
Geoff Bennett: A Durham, North Carolina, native, Gergen attended Yale University, where he was managing editor of The Yale Daily News. He got a taste for politics after interning in Democratic Governor Terry Sanford's office.
After Yale, Gergen earned a law degree from Harvard and served in the U.S. Navy, stationed in Japan. Despite not knowing any Republicans growing up and even voting for Hubert Humphrey in the 1968 election, Gergen got his start in Washington at the Nixon White House, where he worked as an assistant on the speechwriting team.
In 1975, after President Nixon's resignation, he joined Gerald Ford's administration as the director of communications.
Gerald Ford, Former President of the United States: Let us restore the golden rule to our political process and let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate.
Geoff Bennett: There, Gergen had his work cut out for him, working to rebuild trust in America's political establishment in the wake of the Watergate scandal.
Then, in 1981, during Ronald Reagan's first term, Gergen began work as an adviser and eventually became the administration's director of communications at a pivotal moment in American politics, navigating a recession, the ongoing Cold War and the early years of the AIDS crisis.
From there, he transitioned to journalism, eventually serving as chief editor for U.S. News & World Report and offering his sober and measured political commentary on PBS and later a number of other news outlets, most recently as a senior analyst for CNN.
Judy Woodruff: He did his homework. He knew the issues.
Geoff Bennett: "News Hour" special correspondent Judy Woodruff worked alongside Gergen for many years.
Judy Woodruff: David was able to explain the policy and describe it in a way that made it understandable and acceptable that the president was doing something that might otherwise be considered controversial.
David Gergen: I also want to salute you, Mr. President.
Geoff Bennett: Gergen returned to the White House in 1993 for a fourth and final stint as a senior adviser to Democratic President Bill Clinton and his secretary of state, Warren Christopher.
David Gergen: In asking me to serve at your side, sir, you are indeed honoring your pledge to seek a national bipartisan government.
Judy Woodruff: I can't imagine where David Gergen would fit on the spectrum today. He'd be somewhere in the middle, and that's a disappearing act. It's just a hard thing to imagine in this current environment, when we are so polarized, so divided by our politics.
Geoff Bennett: His perspective, both working in politics and covering it as a journalist, was the premise for his first book, "Eyewitness to Power." The bestseller documented his 30 years in and out of the White House, but also his greatest lessons learned.
"There is nothing more important to the success of an actor," it is said, "than the performance in his first scene and his last," he wrote. "The same applies in politics and in other fields of leadership."
In stepping away from the daily Beltway grind, Gergen was able to devote time to academia as both a professor of public service at Harvard University's Kennedy School and founding director of the Center for Public Leadership, a topic he wrote about extensively in his second book, "Hearts Touched With Fire," published in 2022.
He returned to PBS for a conversation with Judy Woodruff about the new era of politics, making the case for leaders to pass the torch.
David Gergen: I think people like Biden and Trump ought to both step back and leave and open the door to younger people from the next generations to serve as president. We just can't take the risks that are involved, and especially on health.
Geoff Bennett: David Gergen is survived by his wife of 57 years and their two children and five grandchildren.
7:52:04 (ET)
Amna Nawaz: Before we go, I want to let each of you say whatever you would like to share. You saw the lovely remembrance about the life and legacy of David Gergen before.
What do you take away from his work and the way that he lived?
David Brooks: Yes, first, prudence.
It's worth remembering that he was hired by Bill Clinton because the Clinton administration was wobbling all over the place, and they needed somebody wise. And so they called David in.
And then just decency. Somewhere, somebody once said the primary political virtue is just decency. And he was a wonderfully decent, warm guy with a twinkle in his eye. And especially that twinkle showed up when he was teaching or talking about teaching his kids at the Kennedy school. He loved that job.
And anybody who just wants to pass on to the next generation, I have got a lot of time for that.
Jonathan Capehart: Whenever I saw him in the green room or out, the number one thing that jumped out at me is, he is an incredibly elegant man, a decent man, someone who, just watching those old tapes of him, is literally out of another era.
And it makes me long for someone like him, more people like him, conservatives, folks on the right who could work with people on the other side of the aisle to move things along. We are a long way away from the elegance of David Gergen.
David Brooks: When I was watching the obituary, I thought, Yale, Harvard law degree, military service, like, I am so underqualified for this job.
(Laughter)
David Brooks:
I took his chair. But it's worth remembering, he had — first, he started with communication skills. And he was the guy who told Ronald Reagan to ask in one of the debates against Jimmy Carter, are you better off now than you were four years ago?
Amna Nawaz: Yes.
David Brooks: Which turned out to be one of the key moments of that campaign.
But then he was not just a communications guy by the Bill Clinton came along. He was doing policy. He was doing all sorts of advice. And so he was, like, almost out of another era of Washington, of people who serve both parties, who do it for national service. And then he was a centrist, a good PBS conservative like me.
(Laughter)
David Brooks: And, as Judy said, where are those people now?
Amna Nawaz: Yes.
David Brooks: And so that too a little out of another time.
Amna Nawaz: Jonathan, got like 30 seconds left. If there's one lesson you think people can take from his life, what do you think that is?
Jonathan Capehart: I think they should follow his example. Reach across and look for the thing that joins us, as opposed to looking for something bad or malevolent in the person you're talking to.
Amna Nawaz: Of course, our thoughts are with his family and loved ones. Jonathan Capehart, David Brooks, thank you so much.
Jonathan Capehart: Thanks, Amna.
