Tim Russert

No long-term decisions have been made, but Brian Williams will host Meet the Press this Sunday.

His guests will include Lindsey Graham and Joseph Biden, the scheduled guests for Meet the Press on June 16 before Tim Russert's sudden death last week. Jacques Steinberg of The New York Times has the news from NBC's spokeswoman, Allison Gollust.

Yesterday afternoon, politicians, journalists, news executives, friends and family members gathered at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. for a 90-minute memorial service honoring the late Tim Russert.

The moving ceremony reached an emotional peak when Mr. Russert's 22-year-old son Luke took the stage and spoke eloquently about his father's unfailing optimism, his faith in God, and his enthusiasm for life.

"Great men often lead with their egos," said Luke Russert. "Tim Russert led with his heart, his compassion, and, most importantly, his honor. He had a great time living, and is no doubt having the time of his life now in heaven.  read more »

Leon Neyfakh tracks the latest bookish fad: Picking up girls (or boys) using a galley: "This is what happens when someone reads a galley (a.k.a. ARC, or advance reading copy) in public: publishing people take notice and begin to wonder about certain things. There’s the galley’s provenance, of course. But what about its owner? Where does he work? Does she like the same things I do? Is he single?"

Felix Gillette looks back at the life and career of Tim Russert. "He was shrewd enough to make his shrewdness appealing. ('He was a ruthless guy,' one of Russert’s former coworkers told The Observer.  read more »

At 1:30 p.m., the line of mourners on Mount Saint Alban in Washington, D.C., for Tim Russert, NBC Washington bureau chief and host of Meet the Press, who died so suddenly last week at the age of 58, stretched all the way from the front doors of the St. Albans School Refectory out to Wisconsin Avenue.

Before the hearse arrived bearing Russert’s dark wooden casket, the presidential motorcade had arrived; President George W. Bush and Laura Bush were among the first mourners. Then the hearse arrived to bear Russert’s casket into the refectory, followed by his son, Luke, and his wife, Maureen; then a host of his famous television news friends.  read more »

He was a fixture in Washington, one of the most influential people in a city where power is the only currency that matters. From Capitol Hill to K Street to the suburban boxes of Alexandria, Va., Tim Russert was a man to be courted, flattered and envied. He was the best politician never to run for office.

But for all the glory and all the power that came with his job, Tim Russert never really stopped being a kid from Buffalo, an unapologetic political junkie who loved the spectacle of campaigns and elections and who never lost his curiosity about the people who would lead us.  read more »

Another tribute to the late Tim Russert, this time from Late Night with Conan O'Brien on Hulu.com. On Friday, just a few hours after Mr. Russert's death was announced, Mr. O'Brien said in his monologue, "This is pretty shocking for us He's been a pretty good friend to me and us here at the show." Mr. O'Brien added that Mr. Russert's son, Luke, had been one of his show's interns last year.

Mr. O'Brien praised Mr. Russert by saying, "From the moment I met him, he put me at ease. I always told him countless times, he reminded me of my Irish Catholic uncles: Big head"—here he gestured to indicate he meant big in size, not in self-regard— "big laugh, huge heart."  read more »

This morning, Luke Russert made an appearance on NBC's Today where he spoke to Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera about his late father, Tim Russert, who passed away of a heart attack on Friday afternoon.

The segment began with a moving photograph, taken by the Associated Press on Sunday morning, which captured Luke standing in the Meet the Press studio in Washington D.C., with his hands resting on his father's empty anchor's chair.

“I’m going to keep that chair forever,” Luke Russert told Mr. Lauer this morning. “That’s my chair now.”

On Sunday morning, Tom Brokaw hosted a special edition of Meet the Press, honoring the late Tim Russert. He was joined in the Meet the Press studio in Washington D.C. by James Carville, Mary Matalin, Mike Barnicle, Gwen Ifill, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and MTP Executive Producer Betsy Fischer. Maria Shriver patched in from Sun Valley, Idaho.

"Tim has a very large wooden sign in his office and it's going to be our mantra for this morning," said Mr. Brokaw at the outset. "It says, ‘thou shall not whine.' If I could add anything to that, I think, thou shall not weep or cry this morning. This is a celebration."  read more »

In the aftermath of Tim Russert’s sudden death, the Los Angeles Times speculates on who NBC News executives will choose to replace Mr. Russert as the host of Meet the Press.

“Speculation on possible successors centers on three on-air personalities already under contract to NBC: David Gregory, the former White House correspondent recently given his own MSNBC show, "Race for the White House"; Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC's long-running "Hardball"; and Joe Scarborough, the former congressman and host of "Morning Joe" on MSNBC, according to talent representatives who declined to speak on the record for fear of jeopardizing relationships with network management,” reports the L.A. Times.

   read more »

After digging through his extensive database and crunching the numbers, TV news analyst Andrew Tyndall has found that ever since 1991 when the late Tim Russert took over as the D.C. bureau chief for NBC News, his correspondents in Washington were significantly more productive than their competitors in terms of getting air time on the evening news.

"The DC bureau has been the backbone of NBC's journalism," writes Mr. Tyndall. "Each evening at the news hour, NBC Nightly News has relied on Russert's inside-the-Beltway corps of correspondents much more heavily than either CBS Evening News or ABC World News."

More from the report:

 

Tyndall Report's data show that since 1991, when Russert took the chair at Meet the Press, his DC bureau has accounted for fully 30% of all Nightly's weekday stories, an annual average output of 1520 minutes, more than 25 hours.  read more »

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Tim Russert, NBC's Washington bureau chief and the influential host of its Sunday morning program Meet the Press, died the afternoon of Friday June, 13, after collapsing from a heart attack while recording voice-over segments for Sunday's show at NBC's Washington news bureau. He was 58.

had previously been diagnosed with coronary artery disease, which he treated with medication and exercise. After the collapse, medics rushed Russert to Sibley Memorial Hospital, where efforts to resuscitate him failed. According to doctors at the scene, cholesterol plaque had ruptured an artery in Russert’s heart, which was enlarged, an autopsy later revealed.

Tom Brokaw announced the news of Russert’s death on the air for NBC. His colleagues were shocked and grief stricken. Doris Kearns Goodwin, who has known Russert for about a decade and was a frequent guest of his on Meet the Press was in tears after a television station broke the news to her with a telephone call.

"I feel so bad," she told The Observer. "He was such a good friend."

"Somebody just called from the television studio and said have you heard the horrible news about Tim and I thought he must have been in a plane crash,” she added. "He's a giant and he's the best. I loved him…I can't imagine what the news bureau is going through down there. I heard it is just wailing.”  read more »

"He had this wonderful ability to mix toughness with humanity, especially in an age when lots of people are posing as tough guys," said The New Yorker's Ken Auletta.

It was Friday evening, and Mr. Auletta was on the phone with the Observer, speaking of the late Tim Russert, who passed away on Friday afternoon of an apparent heart attack.    read more »

Bob Shrum, a Democratic strategist and frequent guest on Meet the Press, said he thinks that Tim Russert was "the greatest political interviewer of our time and maybe all time."

"He held people to account. Politicians love to change their views depending on circumstances -- they are only human -- and there was Tim with a quote from six months ago, a year ago, five years ago, to put it up on the screen and say, 'Well, how do you explain your position today, when you said this five years ago?'

"The other thing he did was he reinvented the Sunday talk show. The Sunday talk show could have died. He gave it new life and drama and people really cared about it. And at a human level, he was just a terrific person. He knew my father was sick, he sent him an audio book with an autograph. Of course he wouldn't open it because he didn't want to ruin the autograph. I told Tim and he said, 'I owe you another audio book.' But I find the whole thing unbelievable. I'm supposed to be taping a show with him next Thursday and I'm talking to you about him in the past tense.

"The other thing is that he was a progressive Democrat, he never made any secret about that, but he was totally fair. You could get people on both sides of the aisle to say that. Tough. He could be very tough. But he said what he thought. So on the night of Indiana and North Carolina he looked in to the camera and said we now know who the Democratic nominee for president is going to be, and he was right. Some people criticized him for that, but it was the truth."

More on the Paterson press conference, from intern Bharat Ayyar:

Just moments after the conclusion of the event, David Paterson went back up to the podium to address the sudden passing of NBC anchor Tim Russert.

“He was a resident of Buffalo, New York, had worked in the governor’s office of the State of New York, and has been an outstanding journalist," he said. "For those who watched Meet the Press every Sunday, any guest on that program was subjected to his steadfast, disciplined, critical and honest nature."

"The world was benefited by his contributions," Paterson continued. "We send our deepest sympathies and prayers to the family of Tim Russert."

From John McCain:

"I am very saddened by Tim Russert's sudden death. Cindy and I extend our thoughts and prayers to the Russert family as they cope with this shocking loss and remember the life and legacy of a loving father, husband and the preeminent political journalist of his generation. He was truly a great American who loved his family, his friends, his Buffalo Bills, and everything about politics and America. He was just a terrific guy. I was proud to call him a friend, and in the coming days, we will pay tribute to a life whose contributions to us all will long endure."

From New York State Democratic Party Chair June O'Neill:

“Tim Russert was a New York original, a die-hard Bills fan and an old friend to many of us in the New York State Democratic Party. A native of Buffalo, Tim was a local hero who I first got to know when he went to work for Pat Moynihan’s campaign and later on Mario Cuomo’s campaign for Governor. For all Americans he was a trusted voice on the issues of the day, but for New Yorkers he was like an old friend who we tuned into every night and on Sunday mornings. He had a wonderful sense of humor, was a true blue Democrat and just a great guy. On behalf of all New York Democrats, I want to express our deepest sympathies to Tim’s wife Maureen, their son Luke and the entire Russert family. Our thoughts and prayers are with them.”

We'll be adding more here.  read more »

I just talked to Doris Kearns Goodwin, who knew Tim Russert for about a decade and who was a frequent guest of his on Meet the Press.

"I feel so bad," she told me. "He was such a good friend.

"Somebody just called from the television studio and said have you heard the horrible news about Tim and I thought he must have been in a plane crash. That he had a heart attack and just died. It's incomprehensible.

"He's a giant and he's the best. I loved him."

"The most extraordinary thing about him was that he just had such unparalleled empathy for whoever he was talking with," she said. "You never had the feeling he was trying to get somebody -- he just wanted to get them to talk and wanted to get the record straight and his emotional self was as strong as his intellect. As a journalist there was such a strength of his person who everyone who knew him knew. He was just beloved.

"I can't imagine what the news bureau is going through down there. I heard it is just wailing. He was just a giant of a person he was such a good friend."

For 15 minutes at the very top of their final pre-March 4 Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama traded mind-numbingly wonkish soliloquies about the details of their health care plans. To any candidates for master’s degrees in Heath Care Policy who might have been watching, the dialogue was possibly beneficial.

To the remaining 99.9 percent of the viewing audience, it was an incoherent exchange in which both candidates seemed to be reaching into the minutiae of their opponent’s plan in an effort to play a particularly demagogic brand of gotcha.

For these viewers, there was no clear winner or loser during the health care portion of the debate. But then the topic changed and Clinton decided, out of a frustration that has been mounting for months it seemed, to vent some of her displeasure with the media.  read more »

During a grilling of Ralph Nader on Sunday morning, Tim Russert noted that the 73-year-old consumer advocate is now launching his third presidential campaign and asked if Nader was worried about becoming the Wendell Willkie of his generation.

Actually, the independent bid that Nader announced on “Meet the Press” will be his fifth White House campaign: Besides his 2004 and 2000 efforts, there was also 1996, when he ran as the Green Party’s nominee in about 10 states; and 1992, when he ran as a write-in candidate in a series of Democratic primaries to protest the lack of a “none of the  read more »

Brian Williams and Tim Russert came to tonight’s debate prepared to moderate—or perhaps to instigate—an argument over the role of race in the Democratic presidential campaign and the matter of who first introduced the subject.

But Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton wanted none of it. And neither did an unknown member of the audience in Las Vegas, who interrupted the proceedings about 20 minutes in with loud castigations of the moderators and their “race-based” questions.

Williams and Russert devoted the first segment of the debate to various facets of the race question, which has dominated news coverage of the Democratic contest for the past few days, and they were anxious to force both leading candidates to address the way the subject has been used by their own campaigns.  read more »

A Nevada judge ruled yesterday afternoon that MSBNC will have to include Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich in tonight’s debate—or face a possible injunction halting the televised event from occurring.

“The judge called it a matter of fairness and said Nevada voters will benefit if they hear from more than just Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards,” the AP reported Monday afternoon.  read more »

On Tuesday Jan. 15, MSNBC will host a debate among Democratic presidential candidates live from Las Vegas.

According to today's announcement from MSNBC, the debate will focus on "issues important to minority voters" and will be sponsored a number of groups, including the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, 100 Black Men of America, and the Democratic African-American Leadership Council.

Brian Williams and Tim Russert will moderate.  read more »

Speaking of Ron Paul ... blogger Ben Fritz catches NBC's Tim Russert making an embarrassing error during his interview with the Republican presidential candidate on last Sunday's Meet The Press.

At one point, Mr. Russert asked his guest: "You say you're a strict constructionist of the Constitution, and yet you want to amend the Constitution to say that children born here should not automatically be U.S. citizens."  read more »

There are two Mitt Romneys—the one who ran twice in Massachusetts as a moderate-to-liberal Republican and the one now running for the G.O.P. presidential nomination as a red-meat conservative.

When these two diametrically opposite characters end up meeting each other, awkward comedy ensues. Case in point: this weekend.  read more »

Fortune smiled on Mike Huckabee today.

The former Arkansas Governor, suddenly the front-runner in Iowa, was supposed to come under intense fire from Mitt Romney at this afternoon’s Republican debate in Des Moines—the last head-to-head encounter between the candidates before the January 3 caucuses.

And the set-up seemed perfect for Mr. Romney, whose Mormonism has probably contributed to the stunning rise of Mr. Huckabee, a personable Baptist preacher who may be more culturally compatible with Iowa’s formidable bloc of Christian conservatives.  read more »

In case you missed it, here’s Rudy Giuliani explaining to Tim Russert yesterday why Judith Nathan had taxpayer-funded security before their relationship went public.

It just goes to show that in the world of Republican presidential politics, there’s no such thing as being too conservative on gay rights.

The news that Mike Huckabee advocated the quarantine of AIDS patients in 1992—the same year an H.I.V.-positive Magic Johnson was a starter on the gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic team and was named M.V.P. of the N.B.A.’s All-Star Game—is actually expected to boost his credibility with the Christian conservatives who hold sway in critical early primary and caucus states, like Iowa and South Carolina.  read more »

Mr. Russert has found a safe way to be a bully and to embarrass those who do not have the protection afforded by the role of journalist.  read more »

For the love of God, please stop enabling them.  read more »

The Clinton campaign continues with what it clearly regards as the winning theme of Hillary-as-mugging-victim after this week's debate. Here's a fund-raising letter just sent out to supporters by Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle:

 

If you saw the debate Tuesday night, or if you've seen the news coverage since, then you know that this campaign has entered a new phase.

On that stage in Philadelphia, we saw six against one.

The rest after the jump.  read more »

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Edwards and Obama leapt at the chance to take Clinton to task for what they said was her inability to talk straight with the American people.  read more »

After the influential Meet the Press audience had turned its television sets off, Mr. Dodd at last offered a truly newsworthy pronouncement that might have ramifications both on the campaign trail and on Capitol Hill.  read more »

Mr. Edwards is contributing mightily to the base’s deeply flawed reading of the political realities in Congress when it comes to ending the Iraq war.  read more »

Mr. Obama passed, yet again, on a high-profile chance to fuel his second-place candidacy with a badly needed sense of urgency.  read more »

In case you missed it, Hillary Clinton had a busy day yesterday, making the rounds on the Sunday talk shows (and getting a particularly tough time of it from Chris Wallace, whose career has profited greatly from Clinton-sassing).

At around the 3:40 mark on this clip of Meet the Press is another confrontational moment, as Tim Russert reads a series of her statements about whether to withdraw troops from Iraq by a certain date, and concludes, “You’ve changed your mind.”

Hillary’s reply: “Well, the circumstances on the ground have certainly compelled me to continue to evaluate what is in the best interest of our country and our troops."

And speaking of making the rounds, Councilman David Weprin will be debating Pat Buchanan on Harball tonight over whether Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ought to be allowed to speak at Columbia University, Weprin’s office just told me.

That’s at 5 p.m.

Then, at 7 p.m., Weprin will debate the same issue with Glenn Beck on CNN.

On Sunday, the idea that Kerry ever considered using McCain as a running-mate seemed laughable.  read more »

On Meet the Press this Sunday, David Broder, the supposed “dean” of the Washington press corps, demonstrated that on at least one topic he’s well ahead of his fellow journalists.  read more »

The government put I.  read more »

The flimsy philosophizing of Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House and aspiring Presidential ca  read more »

What an irony, that a war advanced by many as an alternative to forging a peace in Jerusalem—indeed who saw it as a clean break from such negotiations—has had the opposite effect.

And how revealing, that in seizing on the Golan provision of the report as one of its greatest challenges, Tim Russert and Andrea Mitchell just now on MS-NBC both described the return of these high, watered lands as something "we" were being asked to do: Americans, American politicians. As though we might snap our fingers and this ally in the Middle East would respond. The Baker report was also forthright on this point. "No American Administration—Democrat or Republican—will ever abandon Israel."

Few would disagree that George Bush is the worst president since—at least—Herbert Hoover. Bill Clinton will have a roll of historical toilet paper trailing off his heel wherever he goes, thanks to his bad judgment in the Paula Jones case, but George Bush is forever manacled in history's dank dungeon by his bad judgment on Iraq.

Herewith, a Hail Mary play for Bush 43.

The other night, Charlie Rose asked Tim Russert who Bush would want to follow him as President. Great question, Russert said. Then he said that if Cheney was somehow forced to leave the VP spot, Bush's choice would be Condoleezza Rice. The two get along, he trusts her.

Bush should be the decider right now. He should seek the resignation of the toxic Buddha and nominate Rice to step in, under his 25th Amendment powers. Notwithstanding the complete disaster that Bush has unleashed on the world and on world opinion of the U.S., naming the first black vice president, and the first woman, would make all of us proud of him in spite of ourselves—including historians.

Of all possible explanations for the mainstream media’s preoccupation with the Clinton marriage, t  read more »

The shoe being on the other foot, Tim Russert of NBC took the opportunity of being interviewed by Brian Lamb on Washington Journal this morning to complain about an interview of him that the Times Magazine ran on Mother's Day. Russert said that reporter Deborah Solomon merged answers to different questions so as to make it appear that they were answers to one question. He said that the Times embarrassed him by titling it an interview about his father, when it was about his mother. He said that he had written a long letter to the Times, after complaining to Solomon, and that the Times hadn't run it yet. "What else are you going to do?" Brian Lamb said. "I don't know what else I can do," Russert lamented (beside bitch about it on national television).

In the mandala of press abuses, this one doesn't rate. Most authors—the Times interview coincided with a new book by Russert—would happily accept Russert's treatment. A lot of what Solomon evidently did goes with the territory of magazine writing, making things easier for people to read. Russert never said that Solomon misquoted him or misrepresented his words or ideas. Oh, he doesn't like the headline. Russert needs to absorb the lesson of Big Russ, his father, and take it like a man.

This morning on Meet the Press, Tim Russert had a table of religious experts and at the end said they just had enough time for each of them to give a twenty second message for people on Easter. Well, then the pastor on the remote said something about Jesus, Professor Seyed Hossein Nasr said something about common religious values the world over, Rabbi Michael Lerner said something about getting past nationalistic ideas of faith, Sister Joan Chittister said a few inspiring words about Growing with god, and then the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, a neoconservative, rattled on and on about God giving up his only son Jesus and what this means to all religions... He went on for a long time, over 30 seconds. So when Russert turned to the last guy on the panel, Jon Meacham of Newsweek, he had to apologize, but they were out of time.

Neuhaus had left out a basic spiritual value, unselfishness.

On the evening of Sunday, Aug.  read more »

Growing up in Buffalo, Tim Russert knew nothing about one of the city's landmarks, the Prudential bu  read more »

"Is he out of his mind?"Does he have the faintest idea what he's talking about?"  read more »

Ever since the invasion of Iraq last spring, American and British troops have been sweeping through  read more »

Wednesday, July 23On Monday, July 21, Tom Bettag, the longtime executive producer of Nightline , who  read more »

When the tank pulled Saddam's statue down in Baghdad, and Iraqis-a small crowd of them, anyway-jumpe  read more »