Longtime CBS correspondent Bill Plante has passed away at 84 years old, according to CBS News.
The veteran reporter retired in 2016 after working for more than 5 decades in the news Plante reported on events such as the civil rights movement and the Vietnam war but is perhaps most well known for his work as a White House correspondent from the Reagan administration until the Obama administration.
“It was always interesting — never fail — and in many ways the same every time,” he said in 2016 on CBSNews.com, after he announced his retirement according to The New York Times. “They're different people, but they make the same mistakes; they get into the same kind of jams. And you say, ‘Hey, I've seen this before.'”
According to The Washington Examiner, Plante passed away from respiratory failure.
“He was brilliant, as a reporter and as a human being,” 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl, who covered the White House with Plante for 10 years, told CBS News. “There wasn't anything Bill didn't excel at in our profession: He was a gifted writer, a first-class deadline maker, and a breaker of major stories. He'll be remembered for his reports from the White House lawn, his booming voice that presidents always answered, and his kind heart.”
Plante won awards for his reporting on the Vietnam War and the fall of Saigon, the funeral of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, and his three-part investigation of the U.S.-Soviet wheat deal in 1972.
The reporter was known for his blunt questions in his baritone voice, which often drew the ire of his targets. During the Iran-Contra scandal, he asked then-President Ronald Reagan directly, “Did you make a mistake in sending arms to Tehran, sir?” Reagan was taken aback and answered in an irritated tone, “No, and I am not taking any more questions.”
On another occasion, Plante voiced his frustration with President George W. Bush over his lack of availability.
In 2007, when the president announced the resignation of his advisor, Karl Rove, and began walking away without taking questions, Plante piped up loudly, “If he's so smart, how come you lost Congress?”
“Our asking questions should not be dependent on what the White House thinks the mood or the tone of an event should be,” Plante said at the time about the incident. “And the fact that they say ‘no questions' or don't allow time for questions really has nothing to do with it. They don't have to answer, but I think we need to preserve and aggressively push our right to ask.”
According to CBS, in addition to Plante's passion for journalism, he also boasted an impressive collection of fine wine which is said to be one of the expansive collections in Washington, D.C. Plante soon became known as the “White House press corps' sommelier.”
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Good 1 less leftist reporter who never did same to Obama or Clinton
One less propaganda liar Obama butt kisser in the world. Good riddance to more lefty garbage.
Chris Plante, absolutely one of the BEST conservative talkers in the country, is his stepson. He was tough on both sides and did not raise his kids to be puppets. Keep the automatic-assumption jackass comments to yourselves.