Missing Ed Bradley

(CBS)  This segment originally aired on Nov. 12, 2006.

The following is a weekly 60 Minutes commentary by CBS News correspondent Andy Rooney.

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Ed Bradley's death Thursday morning dominates all our thoughts here at 60 Minutes. It's difficult to keep our minds on our work.

When people are involved in a successful venture, they're happier together than when it's a failure. 60 Minutes has been a uniquely successful television broadcast and Ed Bradley has been a dominant part of that success for 26 years. Those of us lucky enough to have worked to help make the broadcast what it is have been unusually happy working together. We played together, too.

My work didn't have any direct connection with Ed's work on 60 Minutes. We each did what we do as well as we were able, but we did it separately. I'm glad so many people liked him for the work he did but it wasn't why I liked Ed. He wasn't someone on television to me. He was my friend.

I don't have enough years left myself to ever get over missing Ed Bradley.

Not ever.
By Andy Rooney