Saturday, June 14, 2008
RIP, Tim Russert
Like everyone, I was sadly shocked to hear that Tim Russert died yesterday. For a political junkie like me, it was a bad day. He will be sadly missed on Election Night in November. Who will be there with a dry-erase board working out Electoral College possibilities? I know John King at CNN has that super high-tech touch-screen thing, but it's just not the same. Seriously, though, Tim Russert will be missed for the dedication and intelligence he brought to his job. Clearly, he loved what he was doing, and it showed. And he asked good questions, not crap questions like, "Where's your flag pin?" or, "How much do you think Reverend Wright loves America? Does he love it more than he loves his dog?" Okay, so a viewer/voter asked the flag pin question, thus further eroding my faith in democracy. Russert seemed like a really nice guy who just happened to host the most important political talk show on TV. On NBC's nightly news last night, Brian Williams talked to two colleagues who had both asked Russert to be the godfather to their sons. I think that says a lot about the kind of guy Tim Russert was, on and off-screen. He will be missed.
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6 comments:
Nice to have you back, Mark! And since you're back, I'm gonna post a link to your site, if that's ok, on mine. Not that I get a tome, but what the hell...
Hi Uncle E, it's good to be back! I will always accept someone linking to my site! I finally played around with the settings enough to figure out how I could add links to other sites. So I added your site to the links. I'm amazed at the extent of your musical knowledge! How many CD's do you own?
I think the latest count was about 15 or 1,600. And thanks for the link!
Yes, I have a lot of useless second hand music knowledge stored up "there", but it's been fun~
Tim Russert was a truly random and surprising death. He just was not one of those people you think is going to die, like, ever.
I remember thinking the same thing when John Ritter died. I guess he was close to the same age, maybe a little younger, and also had a heart problem. They both also had that incredible energy that made them seem ageless. I don't know how people pull that off in their 50's and even later in life -- I had a hard time doing that in my teens.
Sad indeed -- like the last truly decent, unbiased man in TV news is gone forever. I always liked that he seemed so genial; he didn't shoot for gravitas, like Walter Cronkite or (less successfully) Dan Rather, but that made him all the better for engaging in a frank exchange of ideas. I'll miss him sorely, especially this coming November when we could really use a steady hand on the tiller.
Matty, I totally agree that Tim Russert was someone I thought would never die. (Or at least be with us for a long time to come.) I fully expected to be watching him and his dry-erase board for many, many elections to come. I don't know how he managed to have so much energy, although I bet some of it came from doing what he loved so much. But he was on NBC all the time! He'd be on the Today show, talking about whatever, then he'd be on the nightly news that same night...he worked hard.
And Holly, I liked his geniality as well. It's really something we don't see a lot of on TV right now. Tim Russert was not going to get into a screaming match with a Senator. And he will definitely be missed this November.
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