It is often said on The Stephanie Miller Show that there are only two acceptable times for a grown man to cry:

1. After being hit with a heavy object; and
2. While watching or listening to a speech given by Barack Obama.

I respectfully submit that there is a third time: Upon learning of the untimely passing of Washington Bureau Chief of NBC News and moderator of Meet the Press, Tim Russert.

For those interested in politics, Meet the Press was appointment television every Sunday morning. For those not so interested in politics, a single viewing of Meet the Press could turn a person into a political junkie. Meet the Press wasn’t “entertaining” in the way so many news programs have strived to be of late. No bells, no whistles, no drama stings, no silly graphics.

Just Tim.

He didn’t need to tell you what was “breaking news.” The answers he elicited from the major political people from around the United States and the World, made news.

Recently, many of us have become familiar with the White House GPS. It was and is up for debate whether the road to the White House goes through Ohio and Pennsylvania and Michigan and Texas and even Puerto Rico. However, no one can dispute that the road to the White House did go through Meet the Press via a fair, respectful and grueling interview by Tim Russert. And after a Tim Russert interview, for more than a few candidates, the trip was over. Ask Ross Perot, Ron Paul, David Duke (candidate for Governor of Louisiana) and Bill Richardson - to name only a few.

What made Tim Russert the top of his profession?

Tim met, knew, and was friends with nearly every powerful person in American politics. He was listed among Time Magazine’s 2008 100 Most Influential People in the World. Yes – The World. Yet when he wrote his two best-selling books: Big Russ and Me and Wisdom of Our Fathers, the topic was not the rich, the powerful, or the famous. Russert wrote about family. Those mourning Tim over the weekend uniformly emphasized that his enthusiasm for politics was only surpassed by his love for family, friends and colleagues.

And to the often cynical and frequently nasty political landscape, Tim brought his passion for the personal relationships in life. Every interviewee was a person first; each individual at NBC, family. As written on MSNBC’s website:


Of course it was Tim’s journalistic prowess that most of us know. So many use the words “prepared,” “preparation,” “homework” when speaking of Tim’s body of work. It’s impossible to count the number of times Tim asked a question and following the initial answer, Tim uttered the phrase: “But back in [insert date here] you said…”. And for a split second, sometimes we got a look at the face of his interviewee. Usually they quickly turned ashen, their mind visibly working to try to remember what they could have possibly said in contradiction in some time past. It was not “gotcha” journalism. The questions never “got” anyone. But their answers sure did!

If there was any one thing about Russert’s interviews that I found so much better than many other journalists, it was the fact that his interviews were not about the questions. They were about the answers. So many so-called journalists today approach an interviewee as merely a foil to put forward their own ideas. The more abhorrent among them spend more time extracting praise about their superior interviewing technique than on the content of the answers given. Tim’s humility and quiet confidence in his work made such endeavors for him not only unnecessary, but also unthinkable.

Because Tim’s life was more about family, about friends and about the people he covered than about himself, when a colleague did ask Tim for his opinion, everyone listened to and respected the weight of his answer.

From the final Meet the Press with moderator Tim Russert, June 8, 2008:



Your NBC family will be out there covering the election with the lessons they learned from you, Tim. We will all be following and covering the election, striving for (and almost always falling short of) the high standards you set and always exceeded.

Politics will go on, NBC News will continue, and Meet the Press will carry on.

In 1785, Thomas Jefferson was presented in the Court of France as the American minister following Benjamin Franklin. Jefferson was asked the commonplace question in such circumstances:

“c'est votts, Monsieur, qui remplace le Docteur Franklin?” ("it is you, Sir, who replace Doctor Franklin?")

Jefferson answered, "no one can replace him, Sir: I am only his successor."

It won’t be the same without you, Tim.