Posted on 06/24/2008 7:53:54 PM PDT by Dr. Scarpetta
Leaving their hotel room in Italy ahead of his wife and son to go back to Washington, D.C., so he could tape that Sunday's Meet the Press, Tim Russert was grabbed by his wife.
"I said to him, 'I want to give you a hug; maybe I'll never see you again,' " says journalist Maureen Orth, speaking publicly about her husband for the first time since his June 13 passing – the day after he left Italy. "I don't know why I said that to him. I just had a feeling."
Russert was under extra stress at the time of his death: covering this year's presidential election, flying to Buffalo to visit his widowed father, Tim Sr., 84, in an assisted living facility – which Orth calls "a huge psychological strain for him."
Then there were his three days in Europe, part of the graduation present for the Russerts' son, Luke. "It was very hot and humid in Rome," says Orth. "I was so tired. I told him, 'I don’t know how you do it.' "
Russert was especially energetic when it came to his son, 22. "When it came to Luke, there was no detail too small," says Betsy Fischer, executive producer of Meet the Press.
On the morning of the day he died, she recalled, Russert took a chunk of time off from work to go to his son's new apartment in D.C. and wait for the cable man. "He could have hired someone to do it, but that wasn't Tim."
"Family and faith," Russert's colleague and friend Tom Brokaw writes in his own words for PEOPLE, "were the foundations of his life."
There are lessons to be learned and reminders about being good sons and fathers. Forget the politics....
Will a eulogy for you be any more interesting or compelling than what you just said about Mr. Russert.
“Russert was under extra stress at the time of his death”
Crossing the Clinton’s will do that to you.
There it is. Global Warming killed Tim Russert.
-PJ
“TV must be an addiction. He could not walk away from it.”
Very silly comment. He was 50 freakin’ 8. He could have stopped work at 38 and still dropped dead. He lived his life the way he apparently wanted to and that’s all that matters.
In fact, I think he was not a news reader. Something we can agree on is that you need rest!
It would be nice to think that such a thing is possible, but it's not. One of his brainchildren was a 1,000% tax on ammunition.
That's not a typo, that's a 1 followed by 3 zeros.
One of the last. Lieberman comes in as a poor runner-up.
Very poor.
We all owe Mr. Russert a debt of gratitude. He was after all the moderator during the debate where Mrs. Clinton changed her answer 3 or 4 times in two minutes when he asked her if she supported her N.Y. Governors stance on drivers licence for illegals.
Russert refuse to let go when she gave a wishy washy answer.
Mrs. Clinton never regained her footing as a candidate.
You're right. Too bad he can't go after Obama on his reversal of campaign financing...
Exactly right...
What college was that?
History Major Freepers, please respond.
FWIW is that any indication of where Tim's politics would have been? We will never know the answer from the horses mouth.
SUNY Purchase.
I found this on Wikipedia:
"Moynihan was on balance, a political liberal. He voted against the death penalty, the flag desecration amendment, the balanced budget amendment, the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, the Defense of Marriage Act, the Communications Decency Act, and the North American Free Trade Agreement.
He was critical of proposals to replace the progressive income tax with a flat tax. Moynihan surprised many in 1991 when he voted against authorization of the Gulf War.
Despite his earlier writings on the negative effects of the welfare state, he surprised many people again by voting against welfare reform in 1996. He was sharply critical of the bill and certain Democrats who crossed party lines to support it."
Did he have anything to say about it being alright to forget about the sanctity of life when you went to work/and acted as an apologist for pro-infanticide politicians like he did?
I also wondered how he came to terms with that...
Hillary-cide?
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