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Mike Wallace, who conducted some of the most uncomfortable interviews this side of The Chris Farley Show, has died at the age of 93. For more than 50 years, there were few more chilling phrases in corporate and political offices than “Mike Wallace is here to see you.” With the flair of a showman and the tenacity of a pit bull, Wallace created the public image of what a journalist was and gave 60 Minutes its edge by grilling interviewees, giving them just enough rope to hang themselves before he went in for the kill, or before it became clichéd, setting up ambush scenarios, such as creating a fake clinic for a story on Medicare fraud. But live by the muckrake, die by the muckrake – a 1981 special report on General William Westmoreland charged that he had deliberately misled the country on the strength of the Vietnamese army as part of a great conspiracy. Westmoreland filed a libel suit, and although he CBS was later found to have largely been correct, its methods, including paying for information and interviews, cost it credibility and led it to settle. The incident also contributed to Wallace’s nervous breakdown.