Ben Bradlee flanked by Bernstein and Woodward.

I watched an excellent documentary on Ben Bradlee on HBO the other night called “The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee.” You can stream it here.

Bradlee was the executive editor of The Washington Post from 1968 to 1991 and he is responsible for the Watergate take down of President Richard Nixon, along with reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

The documenary shows how The Washington Post was the only newspapers covering the story and how he and his reporters were accused of false news back then. But the main gist that I took away was how glamorous his life was. He lived a long and charmed life, he passed away at age 93 in 2014.

He was born in Boston and lived that elegant New England lifestyle, later transported to his life in Long Island. He owned Grey Gardens for god’s sake. He lived a charmed life.

He was best friends with JFK and was a fixture at the White House back then.

The documentary shows his whole life in about an hour and a half and throughout the whole thing, you want to be Ben Bradlee.