Journalist Bob Schieffer
Bob Schieffer, the nearly 40-year CBS news anchor and host of the network's Sunday-morning public affairs show, Face the Nation, will moderate the third and final debate between presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama on Oct. 15. The matchup between the two senators will focus on domestic and economic issues, areas particularly relevant to Schieffer's experience — his being one of the few journalistic careers that has covered the Pentagon, Congress, the U.S. State Department and the White House.
Of the current credit crisis gripping Wall Street and the nation, Schieffer says: "This is not the work of those who broke the law. It is the work of those operating within the law, those who pushed the law to the limit making loans the law allowed but, common sense dictated, should not have been made. ... deregulation has become all the rage ... if we somehow get past this, we must get serious about laws that ensure it never happens again."
Personal Life
• Born Feb. 25, 1937 in Austin, Texas and raised in Forth Worth
• Graduated from Texas Christian University in 1959 with a degree in journalism; he started out taking pre-med classes in deference to his mother, but switched after two years
• Married Patricia Penrose in 1967; they have two daughters
• His brother John is a friend and former business partner of President George W. Bush and was appointed ambassador to Japan in 2005 after four years as Australia's ambassador
• Plays in a country band called Honky Tonk Confidential, which made its Grand Ole Opry debut on Oct. 5. "I may be moderating the third presidential debate, but I'm not feeling near the pressure," Schieffer told the Washington Post of his Opry debut
Career
• After three years in the Air Force, Schieffer returned to his college job as a reporter for a radio station, later joining the Fort Worth Star-Telegram as a police reporter
• Schieffer was in the Star-Telegram newsroom when JFK was shot in Dallas. A little while later, a call came in from Marguerite Oswald, mother of Lee Harvey Oswald, the suspected assassin in the JFK shooting. At her request, Schieffer and another reporter drove Mrs. Oswald to Dallas where her son was being held, and took statements from her on the way there of which Schieffer says: "She was making these outrageous statements, statements that were so outrageous that I didn't include some of them ... And I learned a great lesson ... that you have to be very careful about censoring yourself."
• Spent 20 years as anchor of the Saturday edition of CBS Evening News; filled in as anchor of CBS Evening News after Dan Rather's departure; now serves as CBS' chief Washington correspondent
• Has won six Emmys and two Sigma Delta Chi awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, was named Broadcaster of the Year by the National Press Foundation in 2002 and inducted the same year into the Broadcasting/Cable Hall of Fame
• Schieffer also moderated the third debate between George W. Bush and John Kerry in 2004