Ed McGaffigan, former aide to Sen. Jeff Bingaman, long-serving member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the guy whose endless patience helped me understand, deeply, how government really works, died today.
I will repeat what I wrote in January, when it was clear that Ed was dying:
Reporters depend on the generosity of smart people, people who understand how things work and are willing to spend the time to help us understand it too. In my two decades as a reporter, I can think of only a handful of people as smart, generous and important to my work as Ed.
Today I decided to google my dad’s name and see what came up. This is a post that I hadn’t come across before, and I just wanted to say thank you. These kind of remarks about my dad remind me that even though he isn’t here, he had a HUGE impact on the lives of the people around him. I can only hope to have a fraction of that impact during my lifetime.