Tim Russert 1950-2008

Not to start this off on a somber note, but a few days ago Tim Russert died.
And the sad news reached me by strange messenger pigeons indeed. As some of you know I am a compulsive reader of news (an addict really) and on an average day I probably scan NYTimes, Politico and MSNBC five times each. But the email that alerted me to the sudden and wholly unexpected death of Russert, America’s premier journalist and longest serving moderator of the world’s longest running TV show Meet The Press was a short note from Facebook. Who cares about the Facebook groups-feature, right? No one is who, but when I signed up for Facebook I joined a group called ‘Tim Russert is my homeboy’ for a laugh – and it was from the moderator of that group that I got the notice that Tim Russert had died. Full disclosure, I also joined a group called ‘I have a retrospective crush on George Stephanopolous’. Haha.

Meet The Press was, and is, and will soon be again, America’s best public service program. I always tell people Sunday is my favorite day of the week, and this has a lot to do with the Sunday morning talk shows. That and the fact that seeing another Sunday dawn means you survived another Saturday night… Anyways, this past year I loved nothing more than waking up on Sunday morning, rolling out of bed and getting some food and then sit down in front of Meet The Press, then Face The Nation followed by This Week with George Stephanopolous and rounding off the early afternoon with Fox News Sunday (back in the real world I’ll now have to watch these shows on Sunday evenings, oh well). Meet The Press, for the last few years, have been the undisputed champ in the Sunday morning lineup; best moderator, best guests, best issues. This will not mean the end of Meet The Press (as I said, the world’s longest-running TV show with some 50 years behind it) but it will mean the end of an era – Tim Russert was the longest serving moderator of the show and I will always remember his famous intro:

“Our issues this morning…”

Do yourself a favor and watch the beautiful little remembrance montage above to the left with music from his number one fan.