Jeff Dufour, The Examiner
2008-06-13 23:36:50.0
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Washington, D.C. -

The nation’s leaders -- and the journalists who cover them -- reacted with shock and sadness to the death of NBC's Tim Russert on Friday.

The network's Emmy Award-winning Washington bureau chief and host of the top-rated Sunday show “Meet the Press” collapsed at 1:41 p.m. while doing voiceovers for this week's show. Paramedics arrived within minutes and rushed him to Sibley Memorial Hospital.

Russert, 58, was pronounced dead just after 2:30 p.m.

Early reports referred to a heart attack, but Russert's doctor told MSNBC later in the day that an official cause of death had yet to be determined.

Apart from his work on NBC, Russert had become a major force on the American cultural landscape.

In 2004, he published his autobiographical bestseller, Big Russ and Me, about his relationship with his father. He followed it the next year with Wisdom of Our Fathers, which also became a bestseller.

Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He was much in demand as a speaker, and was the subject of a parody sketch on “Saturday Night Live.”

“So many times he ended his ‘Meet The Press’ show with his patented ‘Go Bills!’ that it became part of our Game Day morning rituals,” read a statement from the his hometown Buffalo Bills football team. The mayor of the city ordered flags to fly at half staff.

Russert was a trustee of the Newseum, and strongly advocated its new building on Pennsylvania Avenue.

“It was fitting that one of the very first events at the Newseum was to honor Tim and celebrate the 60th anniversary of ‘Meet the Press,’” said Newseum CEO Charles Overby. “The guest list was more impressive than a White House state dinner list. Without trying to be, he was Washington's leading luminary.”

Indeed, he and his wife Maureen Orth, a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, were one of the preeminent power couples around town. His son Luke co-hosts with James Carville the XM Radio show “60/20 Sports.”

His wife and son were vacationing in Italy, where they were celebrating Luke's graduation from Boston College, when they got word of Russert’s death. The commentator had returned from the trip early to prepare for this week's show.

President Bush received the news while dining with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris. “As the longest-serving host of the longest-running program in the history of television, he was an institution in both news and politics for more than two decades,” the president said in a statement. “And he was as gregarious off the set as he was prepared on it.”

Campaigning in Ohio, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama told reporters, "There wasn't a better interviewer in television.”

Adding his thoughts about being on the show, John McCain added, “I once told him I hadn't had so much fun since my last interrogation in prison camp.”

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman referred to him as “the explainer in chief.”

The highest praise came from those within his profession, especially his competitors.

Bob Schieffer, chief Washington correspondent for CBS News and anchor of “Face the Nation,” said: “He delighted in scooping me and I felt the same way when I scooped him. When you slipped one past ol' Russert, you felt as though you had hit a home run off the best pitcher in the league.”

Fox News Managing Editor Brit Hume said Russert possessed an “unusual combination for a guy who came to journalism relatively late … he was cheerful, authoritative, thorough, and very fair.”

House Minority Leader John Boehner said the full toll of Russert's passing won't be felt until Nov. 4 this year. “Tim's 'white board' analysis of the Electoral College has become a fixture on election nights, and frankly, it is difficult to imagine what that night will be like without him this year,” Boehner said.

But it was friend and favored subject Ted Kennedy who perhaps best summed up Russert’s role in American politics:

“Tim took the measure of every Washington official and all those that sought to be one.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

jdufour@dcexaminer.com