The best and the brightest

Raise a glass to Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter David Halberstam, who died this morning in a car crash.

This is taken from the AP story.

"... When for a variety of reasons -- a flawed, deeply flawed policy -- the government starts lying, that is when independent journalism really matters," he said.

Such reporting, he said, is a key component of democracy.

"The idea that somewhere before it is a big story that there is some young person ... putting themselves on the line morally, ethically, journalistically, that is a great thing," Halberstam said. "I mean, that is what a free society is about."