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Friday, June 13, 2008
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 TIM RUSSERT: 1950-2008
I came home from work minutes ago and was shocked and saddened to learn that Tim Russert, the moderator of Meet the Press and Washington Bureau Chief of NBC News, died this afternoon of an apparent heart attack. He was 58 years old.
If you love politics as much as I do, you loved and respected Mr. Russert. In a format - political talk shows - that has become little more than self-aggrandizing assholes competing to see who can yell the loudest, Meet the Press always remained a forum of quiet dignity and thoughtful discussion. In an industry dominated by curs like Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann, Tim Russert was one of the few remaining giants of a dying art form. As a matter of fact, after David Brinkley died, Russert was really the last one left.
Regardless of what crazy shit I've been doing on a Saturday night for the last two decades, I always made sure that I was awake and coherent on Sunday morning to see Meet the Press. I did that for no other reason than that you were guaranteed to learn so much from that one hour, something that is rarer and rarer in television news. Too many news organizations treat something like Britney Spears' latest fuck-up as something akin to the Kennedy assassination, but I seriously doubt that her name ever crossed Tim Russert's lips.
Mr. Russert could end a political career without even breaking a sweat. He did it to David Duke and he very nearly did it to John Edwards. But he never did it by being disagreeable. He didn't holler and he didn't berate his guests. Russert allowed his guest to recite their silly talking points, and then he would very politely and respectfully vivisect them with the facts and the record. It was a beautiful thing to watch and if you never did, you really did miss something.
Though he was a liberal Democrat who had worked for both Mario Cuomo and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, you wouldn't know it from watching him on television. On the air, Tim Russert was someone who loved politics and knew more about it than most of his colleagues. He was probably the best researched and informed personality on television today.
More than that, you saw his love of his father, his son and his hometown of Buffalo and the Bills. And that wasn't some kind of folksy pretense that you see so often from middle-aged men who read a teleprompter and look like Gary Condit for a living. That was who he was as a man and not only was he proud of it, he had a sense of joy about it. It is fitting that the flags in Buffalo are flying at half mast tonight.
For someone so dedicated to his family, the timing of his death couldn't be worse. Just over a week ago, he had to put the father who inspired two of his books into an assisted living home, and his son had just graduated from Boston College. And Sunday is Father's Day.
Of course, the parade of jackals seeking to fill his chair will commence before the weekend is out, and I'll likely write about it. But this isn't the time for it. This is the time to remember and reflect on an important figure in politics and journalism, and more importantly, someone who seemed to be a genuinely sweet and decent man.
My Sunday mornings are going to be so much poorer without Tim Russert. And the rest of my life will be poorer for knowing that Bill O'Reilly will probably live forever.
My thoughts tonight are with Big Russ, Maureen Orth and his son, Luke. Hopefully, they know what their son, husband and father meant to so many people that he never met. I hope that Tim knew it, too.
Easy Listening Recommendation of the Day: Hallelujah By: Leonard Cohen From: Various Positions
PermalinkLabels: Journalists Are Swine
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