Tim Russert died today. He was 58. When I heard the news, it was felt as a huge loss. My eyes filled with tears. Tim was a presence, a force on television and in the news. He was indelibly etched in our consciousness - certainly in my consciousness - as someone who could be trusted to ask the kinds questions that would get us closer to the truth…a journalist whose research and thoroughness could be counted on to reveal the wider and deeper aspects of any given issue.
Tim was also was fair and balanced, and a superb listener. He was the most brilliant and savvy interviewer on tv or elsewhere. It wasn’t just that watching Meet the Press every Sunday morning was part of my morning staple - it was my morning ritual.
I never knew him personally, but I counted on him to make sense of the news by digging underneath it with his perceptive and probing questions, as only Tim as anchor of Meet The Press since 1991, could do. No one could outshine Tim as an interviewer and interrogator.
What impressed me as much as his great skill as a journalist was his humanity, and his deep abiding affection for his son Luke and his Dad, Big Russ. He wrote a book about that relationship with his Dad called “Big Russ and Me.” Big Russ, a World War II veteran from Buffalo, Tim’s hometown, a former sanitation man, and a man who Tim depicted as the salt of the earth and as someone whose simplicity and wisdom helped Tim in his upbringing and even during his years as a famous journalist.
Tim just put his Dad, Big Russ, in a nursing home - and now the thought of Big Russ learning about his son’s passing is almost too unbearable to contemplate.
Tim Russert was an honest man. He had a big heart, as many charities on whose behalf he diligently supported, will attest. He was larger than life. He was a patriot. A devout Catholic and spiritually humble. He loved politics and saw that discipline as the essence of Americana. He was a huge fan of Buffalo, his hometown, and his favorite team, the Buffalo Bills. He was a family man and loved his family deeply. He was a great journalist - and perhaps the greatest broadcast interviewer of our times.
Fifty-eight is too young to go - but what a life Tim lived…to the fullest. The impact he has left on journalism, and on the American Spirit, will be treasured and endure for a long time to come.
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