Tim Russert, 1950-2008, Rest In Peace

I had to rush home early from work today to run an errand. While sitting in traffic on my drive home a little after 4PM I pulled up politico.com on my PDA. There I saw the shocking news that Tim Russert, moderator of Meet The Press, had passed away from an apparent heart attack. That news knocked the wind out of me.

I have been watching MSNBC on and off all evening. Sometimes I have had my TV on mute when it got tough to take. I saw the video of Chuck Todd talking about Tim Russert while choking back tears. He reminded me this Sunday is Father’s Day. I walked downstairs and saw that my daughter was busy making my Father’s Day present with paper, scissors and glue.

I don’t know Tim Russert. I have never met him. Yet he feels like family today. He feels like family today because for the last seventeen years, nearly every Sunday, I have invited him into my home and listened to him discuss politics. I have sometimes agreed with him; I have sometimes screamed at him; but I have always let him back into my home the following week. He was there – almost without fail – marking the passage of time and the political events that have shaped our world. He was there, almost like clockwork. If it was Sunday, it was Meet The Press.

Not this Sunday. Suddenly, abruptly, unexpectedly, the man who was there for us last weekend will not be there this Father’s Day.

I will miss his white board. Gore v. Bush is forever etched in my mind in numbers on Russert’s white board. Florida. Florida. Florida.

My thoughts and prayers are with Mr. Russert’s family, his friends and his colleagues.

 

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4 Responses to Tim Russert, 1950-2008, Rest In Peace

  1. Ingrid says:

    I have never watched Meet the Press. The sleep deprivation of kids, chilling and sleeping extra sunday mornings were my routine. From what I’ve read on many blogs, he was the kinda journalist that he looked to be; fair AND balanced. The freaky thing for me was that my uncle died of the exact same thing at the exact same age..
    Ingrid

  2. enigma4ever says:

    I have not been here before…I have been sitting here reading…you have a great blog….I will have to add you to the blogroll at watergate summer….

    About Russert….so sad…I know he did ask questions…for me I will always remember the David Duke interview…Ross perot….and the Palm Tree /Colin Powell interview…and yes, he became part of my sunday mornings…always…this sunday felt very strange…And yes, I worry what will happen? Will they get anyone to ask questions? or does what he started end…..tweety or david gregory???ahh no thanks….anyways…very sad..

    About the Blogroll idea…I am not sure how it will work- or the purpose- I need to keepr reading..I know mostly the Obama folks want people to come to THEIR site so they can track how many people a day are reading and debunking…but let me read and think on it …okay ?

    please do come by watergate summer…and also let me know if I may add you to my blogroll…
    thanks…

  3. enigma4ever says:

    oooops- I meant the Anti smear blogroll…Ingrid sent me your way…( thank you Ingrid..) anyways- that is what I a little confused about- but I will read and try to figure it out…
    thanks

  4. Mash says:

    Hi enigma, sorry for the delay in responding.

    The blogroll idea is simple. We all link to Obama’s site in a post. And the blogroll links to all of our posts. Everyone puts the blogroll on their sidebar so now everyone is linking to everyone via the blogroll. The bigger the blogroll gets the more people are linking to each other’s Fight The Smears posts. As the blogroll grows, and the links to everyone’s posts grow, when someone does a search for, say, “Obama muslim”, first they will see Obama’s site and then they will probably see links to posts from the blogroll. This will push the actual smear sites to the bottom of Google searches. So, the idea is to push the lies to the bottom of any search.

    I hope that helps.

    And, I’ll be happy to add you to my blogroll as well. I have visited in the past 🙂

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