NY Times article today concerns PBS anchor Jim Lehrer as a \"safe and uninspired,\" impartial choice to moderate tomorrow\'s presidential debate in Denver. Personally, I take no side on that. But when I think of Lehrer, I\'ll always think of a segment he moderated on his nightly news show many years ago about gambling in America. Was more legal gambling in our nation\'s future? Should it be? What were the downsides? The consequences.
To debate the issue, the show\'s producers selected a panel of your usual suspects - crabby lobbyists and politicians right out of central casting. But then, they also chose Sports Illustrated and Newsweek columnist Pete Axthelm, a Yale graduate and bon vivant who also was an avid horse racing enthusiast, and proud of it. [I\'d often meet Pete at the NYC Tele-theatre on 53rd St. and Second Ave. to bet the Saturday feature race. He was quite a character.] Anyway… whenever the \"against gambling\" panelists spoke, Lehrer nodded with approval and his fullest respect. However, on the \"pro gambling\" side, whenever Axthelm was allowed to speak, especially when Pete dared to intellectualize about the intangible joys of gambling, Lehrer\'s reaction was that of grim-faced horror and incredulity. If there was a line drawn in that night\'s debate, Lehrer clearly was on one side of it.
