From Politico: "Judy Woodruff, “PBS NewsHour” anchor and managing editor, tweeted that she was ”heartbroken” to share the news and noted Shields’ wife Anne was at his side at his death.
“Mark Shields had a magical combination of talents: an unsurpassed knowledge of politics and a passion, joy, and irrepressible humor that shone through in all his work,” Woodruff said in a statement. “He loved most politicians, but could spot a phony and was always bold to call out injustice. Along with Jim Lehrer and Robin MacNeil, he personified all that’s special in the PBS NewsHour.“
For decades, she said, Shields “wowed us with his encyclopedic knowledge of American politics, his sense of humor and mainly his big heart.”
Political commentator and columnist Mark Shields dies at 85
Shields died at his Chevy Chase, Md., home, from kidney failure, a “PBS NewsHour” spokesman said.
"CHEVY CHASE, Md. — Political commentator and columnist Mark Shields, who shared his insight into American politics and wit on “PBS NewsHour” for decades, died Saturday. He was 85.
Shields died at his Chevy Chase, Maryland, home, from kidney failure, “PBS NewsHour” spokesman Nick Massella said.
Shields was a regular on the show starting in 1987, the year the show began, and stepped down from his regular Friday night discussion segment in December 2020. He had collaborated with David Brooks since 2001 to provide analysis and commentary in their weekly Shields & Brooks segment and during election specials and conventions and before that with David Gergen and Paul Gigot, according to “PBS NewsHour.” His tenure there spanned six presidencies.
The Weymouth, Massachusetts, native graduated from the University of Notre Dame and served in the U.S. Marine Corps, according to “PBS NewsHour.” He began his career in Washington as a legislative assistant and speechwriter for Wisconsin Sen. William Proxmire in 1965, according to “PBS NewsHour.” Three years later, Shields joined New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign and later worked on numerous campaigns. In 1979, he began writing a column at The Washington Post that was later distributed by Creators Syndicate.
Shields was a moderator and panelist on CNN’s “Capital Gang” from 1988 to 2005 and a regular panelist on “Inside Washington,” which aired on PBS and ABC, from 2005 until 2013. He also wrote “On the Campaign Trail,” an account of the 1984 presidential campaign. . ."
Please continue reading >> https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/18/political-commentator-columnist-mark-shields-dies-at-85-00040711
From National Public Radio
PBS NewsHour commentator Mark Shields dies at age 85
Mark Shields, the longtime PBS News commentator known for his weekly political analysis, died Saturday morning at the age of 85, PBS NewsHour confirmed.
Shields died of kidney failure at his home in Chevy Chase, Md., NewsHour spokesman Nick Massella told NPR.
Before he retired in 2020, Shields provided thoughtful insights into the administrations of six U.S. presidents, on the Persian Gulf War, the Iran-Contra affair and 9/11. His tenure lasted for 33 years.
Shields was known for both his sense of humor and his expansive knowledge of American politics, Judy Woodruff, the anchor and managing editor of NewsHour said in a tweet announcing his death.
"I am heartbroken to share this..the @NewsHour's beloved long-time Friday night analyst Mark Shields, who for decades wowed us with his encyclopedic knowledge of American politics, his sense of humor and mainly his big heart, has passed away at 85, with his wife Anne at his side," Woodruff tweeted.
Woodruff also said in a statement: "Mark Shields had a magical combination of talents: an unsurpassed knowledge of politics and a passion, joy, and irrepressible humor that shone through in all his work. He loved most politicians, but could spot a phony and was always bold to call out injustice. Along with Jim Lehrer and Robin MacNeil, he personified all that's special in the PBS NewsHour."
The Wall Street Journal called Shields "the wittiest political analyst around" and The Washington Post described him as "a walking almanac of American politics."
"Mark radiates a generosity of spirit that improves all who come within his light," David Brooks, a New York Times columnist, wrote shortly after Shields retired. The two discussed politics together on NewsHour Friday evenings for nearly two decades. . ."
Reference: https://www.npr.org/2022/06/18/1106054812/mark-shields-pbs-newshour-commentator-dies
The People Have Spoken
Mark Shields has worked in politics for more than 40 years. He started as an assistant to Wisconsin Sen. William Proxmire, then worked on four Presidential campaigns and numerous other races. Shields is a political analyst for NewsHour on PBS. Courtesy of Mark Shields hide caption toggle caption Courtesy of Mark Shields
I believe in politics. In addition to being great fun, politics is basically the peaceable resolution of conflict among legitimate competing interests.
In a continental nation as big and brawling and diverse as ours, I don't know how else -- except through politics -- we can resolve our differences and live together. Compromise is the best alternative to brute muscle or money or raw numbers. Compromises that are both wise and just are crafted through the dedication, the skill and, yes, the intelligence of our elected politicians.
I like people who run for public office. For most of us, life is a series of quiet successes or setbacks. If you get the big promotion, the hometown paper announces your success. It doesn't add, "Shields was passed over because of unanswered questions about his expense account" or "his erratic behavior at the company picnic."
But elections have been rightly described as a one-day sale. If you're a candidate, your fate is front-page news. By 8 o'clock on a Tuesday night, you will experience the ecstasy of victory or you will endure the agony of defeat. Everybody you ever sat next to in study hall, double-dated with or baby-sat for knows whether you won or, much more likely, lost. Politicians boldly risk public rejection of the kind that the rest of us will go to any lengths to avoid.
Having worked on four losing presidential campaigns earlier in my life and having covered the last seven as a journalist, I admire enormously the candidate able to face defeat with humor and grace. Nobody ever conceded defeat better than Dick Tuck who, upon losing a California state senate primary, said simply, "The people have spoken…the bastards."
But I believe in politicians who are courageous. The first time I ever slept in the same quarters with African-Americans or took orders from African-Americans was at Parris Island in Marine Corps boot camp, and it was the political courage of one man, President Harry Truman, who ended the racial segregation of the U.S. military because he believed that fairness is at the heart of our values as a nation.
I admired the courage, too, of Ronald Reagan. In 1978, after voter initiatives discriminating against gays had prevailed in Miami, St. Paul and Eugene, Ore., a conservative-backed ballot measure in California to ban homosexuals from teaching in the state's public schools was favored to win until Ronald Reagan made the difference by campaigning successfully against it.
I believe in the politics that wrote the GI Bill, that passed the Marshall Plan to rebuild a war-devastated Europe, that saved the Great Lakes and that through Social Security took want and terror out of old age. The kind of politics that teaches us all we owe to those who came before us and those who will come after. That each of us has drunk from wells we did not dig; that each of us has been warmed by fires we did not build.
At their worst, politicians -- like the rest of us -- can be petty, venal and self-centered. But I believe politics, at its best, can help to make ours a world where the powerful are truly more just and the poor are more secure."
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