I tearfully watched Tom Brokaw and his colleagues provide the nation an extraordinary and wonderful celebration of the life of Tim Russert during this morning's Meet the Press tribute to its fallen host. I lost it a bit myself when Mr. Brokaw momentarily choked up during an especially personal moment in the program.
Tim was our Sunday buddy. He was an inspiration to my family, including my two children, each of whom have begun their own careers in broadcast journalism largely because Tim made Sunday mornings a family viewing experience. I so very much admired him, and had the privilege of meeting him often in Washington over the years.
Tim always made you feel like a million dollars, even us small fry in the Washington journalism establishment.
When we occasionally bumped into each other at 400 North Capitol -- the downtown bureaus for both NBC and Fox News, he always had more than a minute for me. "Tell me, Ambassador, what's new in the world that I need to know?" What an honor, I thought...giving Tim Russert a sidewalk briefing on world events, as if he couldn't get a far better review from the morning's papers.
But Tim was an extraordinary kind man...who always made you feel like you were important to him, and boy, he always had a kind word when our paths crossed.
But one especially wonderful moment with Tim stands out.
My wife and I were in Manchester, NH for the primary in January. We had just finished breakfast at the Merrimack Diner, and the restaurant was crowded with media celebrities, and a few presidential candidates, on that cold Sunday morning.
As we were paying our check at the front cash register, a tourist handed me his camera and asked if I would snap a photo of him with Tim Russert, who was eating at the counter. As I took his camera to snap his picture with the celebrated host of Meet the Press, Tim told the man: "You surely must also want a photo with him, as well." "Why, who is he?" asked the man. Tim responded: "That's Amb. Marc Ginsberg...that's my foreign policy expert who is on Fox News."
Tim said that just loud enough for my wife to hear the compliment. As we were leaving the diner, I told Tim that he could not have said anything that mattered more to me, especially in front of my wife. He made me feel a million miles high that morning, because you could always, always count on Tim Russert to make you feel great.
Tim, you were a World Class "Mensch," (Yiddish for "a truly wonderful person), and we are all the more wiser for your having entered our lives. We will miss you, and I want to thank you for making us feel like we mattered in your life, just as you mattered so very much in ours.
Media people figure an elegant obituary is the best reward for a lifetime of low pay, terrible hours, public scorn and job security so tenuous that they’re all afraid to read the business pages of their own papers.
What happened on Sunday's "Meet/Depress" is a perfect example with the peculiar Beltway twist.
What’s particularly galling to me is that Russert, a truly outstanding journalist, is being eulogized on a panel featuring disgraced plagiarists Mike Barnicle and Doris Kearns Goodwin. I don’t understand how verifiable plagiarism is not the career death sentence in places specifically organized to promote journalistic integrity.
The only thing missing was Don Imus.
May God Bless Tim Russert, his life, his family and the United States of America!
http://www.djgoski.com
"The rap all shared about Russert was that he was "tough but fair. But the cozy schmoozing made the bond between politicos and journalists appear downright incestuous."
She also said:
"Here's a question that seems not to have occurred to the network suits: How are viewers supposed to see NBC--or other networks--as impartial when they air segments with numerous politicians calling Russert their "friend?"
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So, has it yet occurred to you that some of us "morons" got it right and you were fed the pablum, which you bought hook line and sinker.
By sharing those reflections on the death of Mr. Russert--into whose character you make no pretense of having direct, personal insight--you have indelibly framed for the rest of us the weight we ought to afford to your opinions.
"Better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
People wonder why Bush got elected, people wonder why gas is over $4 a gallon, people wonder why this county is billions in debt, why unemployment just rose again,why CEOs are getting million dollar bonuses for bad performance, why brave men and women are dying, why companies like Blackwater and their Exec's are getting money that should be going to our soldiers, why the little guy and gal is getting crushed...
Can you imagine Russert using the term Baby Mama? Well I guess I'll have to turn to that wonderfully intelligent, insightful, "fair and balanced" reporting on the other network. It's that kind of civil dialog that brings in the big $, and that's all that matters. Right?
It is said he liked to root for the underdog. So pray for all of us underdogs here Tim, we really need your help.
Well, thanks to whomever is monitoring the remarks on this thread today, because a lot of them that are getting through are more in step with my thinking.
That's quite charitable of you. I suspect that, in this instance, they are ideologues--of the left, right and completely loony varieties--who recognize that Russert wasn't a public champion of their particular favored messages. They conclude that he must, then, have been an opponent of their views and so, in league with their own particular demons. Not everyone possesses grace, values facts, and cares about people with different views or of other backgrounds. It may be simple: He did. They don't.
Your comment? Nice job. Much appreciated. Thanks.
There has been only one journalist in the m.s.m., with the guts to come out and tell it like it is.
Keith Olbermann, and there is no politician that would have the stones to take him on one on one. This man goes to the core.
when the news stories and the funeral is done.
It finally dawned on me (at 5:45 am in the shower - where many of my insights come).
In two words: "George Dzundza."
Mr. Dzundza was an actor in "The Deer Hunter." Although billed by many as "about the Vietmam war", its appeal to me was always its larger-than-life depiction of a small Pennyslvania coal town in the 1960's - 70's. Robert DiNiro and Christopher Walken were superb in their starring roles.
Dzundza played the bartender.
Yet, to me, he stole the show - his patriotism, his joy in living and his pride, in his hometown buddies shined like a beacon. He was the local cheerleader, and his smile lit up the room.
George Ddundza. Tim Russert.
Call me goofy, but that's the light bulb that went off for me at 5:45 in the shower.
Russert was a great man.
can we move on now?
MSNBC - does the "M" stand for maudlin?