Friday, June 13, 2008
Tim Russert Passes Away
Political commentator and interviewer Tim Russert has passed away from a heart attack. This is sad news indeed. As host of Meet the Press, Russert was one of the last interviewers to ask probing questions and dedicate actual, substantial time to interviews without the swagger of egotism, gimickry and fake outrage that characterizes most political fluff television.
Rest in peace Tim.
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I wouldn't go so far as to say he wasn't guilty of those same tactics; just that he, Schaeffer, Stephanopoulos, and the other non-Fox non-cable television Sunday morning politicos used them to a much lesser extent (haha, oxymoron much?) than the scumbags on the cable news channels which (sadly) are currently getting all the ratings.
I just heard about this in a phone call from my mom (having been offline since Thursday; just signed on, yours is the 2nd site I hit up ;D), and yeah, it is sad. She mentioned he'd just been to see the Pope and how his son is a just-graduated alum of Boston College. Really puts it into perspective, it does ... to think that his son is about our age.
Some of the most amazing and important US political interviews I've seen in my young life -- interviews which I felt caught politicians offguard, unscripted interviews with no preparation time allotted between questions -- were interviews on his show. I remember an especially excellent one he did with Dick Cheney back in 2004 or 2005 (right around the time Uncle Dick fell off the map). He was civil with Cheney in terms of language and not pointedly making accusations, but he was fierce -- fiercely fighting for the truth! -- with his Socratic questions he kept posing to Cheney every time the Vice President would attempt to subvert Russert's (dare I say) interrogation.
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