No matter how often one experiences the moment, it always comes as a shock to get the news that somebody famous and not yet old has suddenly died. The Examiner newsroom fell silent earlier today when the news was announced by Tom Brokaw that Meet the Press host Tim Russert had died in the NBC Washington Bureau’s newsroom.
I didn’t know Russert, though years ago when he was Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan’s chief of staff and I was Sen. Orrin Hatch’s communications director, he and I occasionally passed in the hall in the Russell Senate Office Building and exchanged the quiet pleasantries that recalled the manners and customs that once enabled partisan warriors to co-exist in mutual respect and dignity.
Still, it’s painful to hear of the passing of someone of achievement with whom you share a profession and a passion, if not friendship. Russert was an old-guard liberal of the New York Irish-Catholic variety, a blue-collarish guy from Buffalo who had that bigger-than-life presence about him.
Russert was host of Meet the Press longer than any previous person and was the author of two best-selling books, both inspired by his father, “Big Rus.” Godspeed to a fine son.
