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June 13, 2008
Tim Russert
Tom Brokaw's Special Report announcing the sad news.
I'll tell you: I am saddened to hear this afternoon's news about Tim Russert's death.
Judging from the veritable explosion of e-mails, phone calls, and text messages I've received in the past half-hour, Russert's death has shocked people in a way that may have surprised them. And I feel that, too: this death has a discomfiting resonance.
The timing, for one thing. For me, instantly, I think of the fact that like the proverbial farmer's work is never done, so too is there never any time to die that "fits," never any opportunity to be fully and completely cleared for final takeoff. There will always be some interest in what happens next, some endeavour not yet complete. I think, too, of my own father dying in the midst of this goddamn war, in the thick of this goddamn presidency.
Russert's death feels strange because as the nation's premier talking head, one simply expected him to tell us what was happening, just as he has for the past twenty years. That he leaves during this fascinating and historic election feels deeply, cruelly wrong. Russert was going to talk to Chuck Todd and Chris Matthews with us and moderate debates with us and get out his dry-erase board and scribble electoral math deep into the night with us. He was like an adopted uncle, always showing up on Sunday mornings to talk politics. One took Russert's familiar voice for granted and subconsciously relied upon him: indeed, that was exactly what both he and NBC wanted you to do. It was a good deal. Now human frailty has intruded, as it always must.
Of course, I am sad too because Russert was truly Buffalo's favorite son, the world's biggest Bills fan, a South Buffalo kid gone national. He was irrefutable proof to Buffalonians that we are as American as it gets, that we could talk to anybody.
He will be missed. Tim Russert, dead at 58.
Posted by caps at June 13, 2008 04:07 PM