If a bureaucrat is going to testify before the House Intelligence Committee and be streamed into households around the country, it doesn’t hurt for him to remind Americans of the most trusted man in news. That kind of tone-based credibility goes a long way. Rightly or not, you felt like you could trust a man like this; you’d heard and trusted his voice before.
The next day, Marie Yovanovitch took her turn at the witness table. Impressively credentialed and equally poised, the former Ukraine ambassador’s testimony prompted a standing ovation in the hearing room, but it didn’t prompt adoring comparisons to any deceased icons. Her voice did not, after all, sound like Walter Cronkite’s. Hers was the precise, measured tone of a polite 61-year-old woman. And we simply don’t have as many reference points for 61-year-old women who’ve been elevated to the status of most trusted voice in anything.
View the complete November 22 column by Monica Hesse on The Washington Post website here.