Brit hume

Brit Hume

Contents

Early life and education [ edit ]

He was born in Washington, D. C.. the son of George Graham Hume and Virginia Powell ( nee Minnigerode) Hume. Through his father, Hume is of part Scottish descent. [ 2 ]

Career [ edit ]

Hume worked first for The Hartford Times newspaper company, and later for United Press International and the newspaper Baltimore Evening Sun . [ 4 ] He then worked for syndicated columnist Jack Anderson from 1970 to 1972, [ 5 ] and later for Richard Pollak, founding editor of More (a monthly media review published during the 1970s), as a Washington Editor during the mid-1970s.

Hume reported a story for Anderson's column "Washington Merry-Go-Round" that after ITT Corporation had contributed $400,000 to the 1972 Republican National Convention. President Richard Nixon 's Department of Justice had settled the antitrust case against ITT. Anderson published a series of classified documents indicating the Nixon administration, contrary to its public pronouncements, had favored Pakistan during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. After those revelations, Anderson and his staff, including Hume and his family were briefly surveilled by the Central Intelligence Agency during 1972. [ 6 ] [ 7 ] The agents code-named Hume "eggnog" and observed his family going about their daily business. These documents were revealed during President Gerald Ford 's administration by Congressional hearings, and more recently as the result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit and the so-called 'Family Jewels ' revelations.

Hume started working for ABC News during 1973 as a consultant and during 1976 was offered a job as a correspondent, covering the U. S. House of Representatives and U. S. Senate for 11 years. He was assigned to report on Walter Mondale 's presidential campaign during 1984 and Vice President George H. W. Bush 's 1988 presidential campaign. During 1989, he became ABC's chief White House correspondent, [ 4 ] covering the administrations of Presidents Bush and Bill Clinton and working closely with Peter Jennings and Charlie Gibson. [ 8 ]

During January 1997, he resigned from ABC, leaving for Fox News, for which his wife had recently become chief of the network's Washington bureau. [ 4 ] At his last news conference as ABC's chief White House correspondent, President Clinton told him, "I think all of us think you have done an extraordinary, professional job under Republican and Democratic administrations alike." [ 8 ] Hume became Fox News's Washington managing editor and was in discussions about starting a Washington-based television news program for the 6 p. m. timeslot. The Lewinsky scandal began during January 1998, and Hume's wife told him the story was so well known that he should start the show immediately; Special Report with Brit Hume was initiated that evening. [ 8 ]

On December 16, 2008, Hume appeared as a guest on the television program The O'Reilly Factor and announced his retirement from the anchorman position. When asked how he would spend his time in retirement, Hume stated "Three Gs: God, granddaughters and golf."

On December 23, 2008, he hosted his final episode as anchor of Special Report . announcing that Bret Baier. then the chief White House correspondent for Fox News, would be his replacement. Hume also announced that he would remain with Fox News as a senior political analyst and regular panelist for the program Fox News Sunday .

On January 3, 2010, Hume generated some controversy when on Fox News Sunday he advised embattled golfer Tiger Woods to convert to Christianity to attempt to end his problems. Hume's comments were made after the revelation of Woods' habitual adultery and the resulting deterioration of his relationship with his family. Hume stated on the show that: [ 9 ]

Tiger Woods will recover as a golfer. Whether he can recover as a person I think is a very open question, and it's a tragic situation for him. I think he's lost his family, it's not clear to me if he'll be able to have a relationship with his children, but the Tiger Woods that emerges once the news value dies out of this scandal—- the extent to which he can recover—- seems to me to depend on his faith. He's said to be a Buddhist; I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, 'Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.'

Hume reiterated his remarks the next day on The O'Reilly Factor with Bill O'Reilly. Hume insisted to O'Reilly that he never meant to insult Buddhism, and stated that: [ 10 ]

I was really meaning to say in those comments yesterday more about Christianity than I was about anything else. I mentioned the Buddhism only because his mother is a Buddhist and he has apparently said that he is a Buddhist. I'm not sure how seriously he practices that.

Hume gave reason for his strong feelings on Christianity in an interview where he explained how he committed his life to Jesus Christ "in a way that was very meaningful" to him in the aftermath of his son's death by suicide in 1998. [ 11 ]

Political beliefs [ edit ]

Regarding his political beliefs, during 2006 Hume said, "Sure, I'm a conservative, no doubt about it. But I would ask people to look at the work." [ 8 ] In accepting the William F. Buckley, Jr. Award for Media Excellence from the conservative Media Research Center. he expressed his gratitude for

"The tremendous amount of material that the Media Research Center provided me for so many years when I was anchoring Special Report. I don't know what we would have done without them. It was a daily, sort of a buffet of material to work from, and we—we—we certainly made tremendous use of it." [ 12 ]

Personal life and religious views [ edit ]

Previously married to and divorced from Clare Jacobs Stoner, Hume is married to Kim Schiller Hume, Fox News vice president and former Washington bureau chief. [ 13 ] [ 14 ]

His son, Washington journalist Sandy Hume. was a reporter for the newspaper The Hill and first publicized the story of the aborted 1997 political attempt to replace Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. In February 1998, Sandy Hume committed suicide. The National Press Club honors his memory with its annual Sandy Hume Memorial Award for Excellence in Political Journalism. [ 8 ] [ 15 ] [ 16 ] More than a decade later, upon his 2008 departure from Special Report . Hume commented on part of the effect of his son's death: [ 17 ]

"I want to pursue my faith more ardently than I have done. I'm not claiming it's impossible to do when you work in this business. I was kind of a nominal Christian for the longest time. When my son died, I came to Christ in a way that was very meaningful to me. If a person is a Christian and tries to face up to the implications of what you say you believe, it's a pretty big thing. If you do it part time, you're not really living it."

Awards [ edit ]

Hume is the recipient of several awards including: [ 18 ]

Sol Taishoff Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalist (2003)

Emmy Award for coverage of the Gulf War (1991)

American Journalism Review "Best in the Business" award (twice) for White House coverage

Hume: If Republicans Don't Win the Senate, Expect a 'Bloody' GOP Civil War

On Tuesday’s Election Day broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” network senior political analyst Brit Hume played out the scenario of what might happen within the Republican Party should the GOP fail to capture the U. S. Senate after this election cycle.

“Think of what happened this cycle, Martha -- the Republican establishment, if you will, got nominees they wanted virtually across the board,” Hume said. “Tea Party candidates were defeated in a number of primaries. More experienced candidates were nominated. And if you look through the cycle of the season you will see that you didn't have any of these gaffes by Republicans that were you know basically too much for some candidates in the last two cycle to survive even. You didn't have that this year. There has been a lot of gaffes on the Democratic side. You put that together with the fact that the lineup, the key states in play all favor the Republicans. If they don't win this time, the internal conflict in that party which is -- there is something like that every party at all times -- will explode in my judgment.”

“The Tea Party people will say, ‘Alright, we did it your way this time. We did it all your way basically and we still didn't win. We are not going along anymore,’” he continued. “And there will be a civil war, I predict. And you look ahead to 2016. You know, one of the things that party needs to do most is unite. A lot of people believe the fact that the party was not united slowed the turnout for their nominee in 2012 for the presidency. The candidate who is running needs to be able to unite the party. It will be hard to do anyway if they lose this midterm election in the sense of not getting the Senate. They won’t lose this election. They will win more seats, or they’ll add seats. But it will be as bloody a set of recriminations as we have ever seen.”

Dow Infinity

You may think the market's gone about as far as it can go, but you ain't seen nothing yet

In April 1998, Lawrence Lindsey, the economist and former Federal Reserve governor who is now a principal adviser to Governor George W. Bush, pulled his savings out of the stock market. He's been out ever since. At the time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had climbed above 9,000, more than tripling in the previous eight years. Wall Street had never seen a run like it, and Lindsey was far from alone in believing it could not continue. Sixteen months earlier, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan had issued his famous warning against the "irrational exuberance" of a market then hovering around the 6,500 mark.

Given Greenspan's influence, you almost have to give Lindsey credit for staying in the market as long as he did. And by getting out when he did, he missed the nasty downturn that sent the Dow down nearly 20 percent last summer and early fall. But he also missed the dramatic rally in the final months of 1998 and well into 1999, which saw the average rise 25 percent above the level where Lindsey had bailed out.

Many market sages have attempted to explain the extraordinary strength and duration of this bull market, but it has defied explanation by the traditional yardsticks used in the traditional ways. The most widely used of these measures is a comparison of a stock's price to its current earnings, the P/E ratio. Since ownership of a share of company's stock is defined as a claim on the company's future earnings, this is a handy number. Historically stocks have traded at an average P/E of about 14. Today they are trading at more than twice that.

Now come the veteran journalist James Glassman and economist Kevin Hassett with Dow 36,000. You would never know it from the indignant reaction the book generated well before its September publication date, but Dow 36,000 advances a reasonable argument based on data that are widely known and not seriously disputed. Indeed, what is most striking about the book, despite its radical-sounding title, is how radical it isn't.

Glassman and Hassett draw upon data assembled by Jeremy Siegel, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, which formed the basis of Siegel's much-praised 1994 book Stocks for the Long Run. Siegel concluded, as do Glassman and Hassett, that a diversified portfolio of common stocks held for the long term (at least five years, preferably longer) is no more risky than a comparable investment in bonds.

The reason is that common stocks have averaged a yearly return (dividends plus the increase in the price of stocks) of 11 percent since 1926, about 7 percent, they estimate, better than the average return on bonds. Of course, some years the return has been much higher than 11 percent, and some years it has been much lower or even negative -- which is why stocks must be held for a long-enough period to ensure obtaining stocks' superior returns.

When the effect of compound interest is included, the difference between the return on stocks and the return on bonds (as both are currently priced) becomes truly staggering. So why have stock prices not been much, much higher relative to the prices of bonds? The answer lies in the perception, persistent through much of this century, that stocks are much more risky than bonds. The effect of this perception is a discount called the "risk premium," and Glassman and Hassett believe it has resulted in the severe and continuing undervaluation of stocks.

After all, if stocks, held for the long term, produce higher returns with no greater risk, there shouldn't be a risk premium at all. Glassman and Hassett argue that most investors have come to reject the notion of a risk premium -- which they express by buying stocks and mutual funds and holding on through thick and thin, propelling the bull market that has mystified so many in Wall Street.

These ordinary investors witnessed the frightening downturn of 1987, when the Dow Jones plunged 25 percent in a single day, and a series of other stalls and hiccups that have prompted gloom-and-doom forecasts from one end of Wall Street to the other. Each time the market has recovered smartly and soared to new highs. There has not been such a protracted bull market for a quarter century.