wenty-seven years ago, at the bar of the aptly named Wayfarer in Bedford, N.H., hard by the artificial-waterfall-most-often-broadcast on television, Bob Healy of The Boston Globe introduced me to a balding rotund gent:
''Nyhan, say hello to Jack Germond. He's always the last man standing.'' So he was. So he is. Still bald, still rotund, still standing, and still calling his shots with the practiced efficiency of a pool player who makes a living at nine-ball. Jack Germond is one of of the handful of journalists whose thumbs-up or thumbs-down counts in American politics.
Best-known now as a TV talking-head, Germond is a man of print first. Like David Broder, the scrupulously nonpartisan reporter-pundit of The Washington Post, and Bob Novak, the first-rate-reporter-turned-scrupulously-partisan articulator of the conservative position du jour, Germond is a print guy first, with instant access to the mighty, and the minions who service them in the political equivalent of the royal court.
Germond forsook sportswriting early for political journalism for the best possible reason: not to save the world by the flickering light of what Joseph Conrad warned against as any possible ''-ism'' or ''-ology,'' but for the sheer hell of it - the fun. Now comes ''Fat Man in a Middle Seat; 40 years of covering politics,'' (Random House), a page-turning collection of yarns and common sense distilled from four decades of tracking the spoor of the politicians who make the biz such a hell-bent-for-election adventure, hilarious and heartbreaking in turn.
No punches are pulled in this memoir. He dismisses George Bush the Elder as ''a totally amoral campaigner ... he would do whatver it took to win an election ... he was such a whiner it was embarrassing.''
Germond recounts one stomach-turning event when Bush received the endorsement of a New York man whose policeman son had been murdered. Primed by henchmen to demonize rival Michael Dukakis, Bush said: ''If the liberal governor of Massachusetts doesn't understand it when a Matt Byrne stands up and creates a foundation for his son, I do and so do the American people.'' Added Germond: ''What struck me later as I repeated this story to my friends was that the reporters of my generation, the older hacks, were the only ones appalled by the willingness of a presidential candidate to stoop so low.''
Because of the cover-your-fanny right-wing slant of network television in general, and PBS in particular, the sidelines have been moved for broadcast political comment. As a result of this tropism that began with the odious Nixon years, someone like Jack Germond -- a cheerfully moderate, middle-of-the-road skeptic -- became the left-iest commentator on lowest-common-denominator talk shows. No hare-brained liberal he. Nor hair-brained either.
But he often finds himself cast against strident defenders of the right, who are often not right, by my rights, which of course may not be right either. Watching Germond swat back the likes of John McLaughlin or Bob Novak became a parlor sport for a generation of the kind of college-educated up-market voters who resign themselves to their civic duty and watch the political gabble on the boob tube. Sit with Germond on a park bench or bar stool anywhere, and someone walks up and initiates a political conversation because they've bonded with him, TV-wise.
The polite ones are met with politeness; the nonpolite deserve what they can get, depending on the weather. Among the latter category are fringe political candidates with high opinions of themselves who whine that they deserve better from the mainstream media. ''Don't waste my time'' is one of Germond's kinder dismissals.
But no man can be a cynic who visits the track on a regular basis. By definition, the bettor on horses is at heart an optimist. If Germond were luckier at the ponies than in his political prognostications, he'd be rich. But few are richer in his range and breadth of pals. In any state, any city you can name, he knows a friend, a bar, the best place to eat, and is on a first-name basis with six people who can tell you what's really going on.
His longtime running mate is Jules Witcover, a saturnine reporter whose energy level and relentless pride in craft matches that of The Fat Man in a Middle Seat. One of their dwindling breed, Tom Ottenad of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, just died at 77, an insider's insider whose reporting skills and analytical objectivity made him not only a source but a treasure to his rivals and friends, often one and the same. They are a hardy crew, these road warriors who beat the bushes decade in, decade out, ferreting out the next Bill Clinton, the next John McCain. They know readers are sullen, editors are impatient, and publishers can be cheap. But they live the life they love, and at the end of the day, raise a glass. So here's to Jack Germond: the last man standing, even when squashed into that middle seat.
David Nyhan is a Globe columnist.
