An Empty Chair

Sunday's Meet the Press was a beautiful tribute to Tim Russert.

His empty moderator chair was the backdrop as Tom Brokaw hosted a panel of Russert's friends and colleagues, relaying their thoughts and memories.

The program ended with a photo montage spanning Russert's life, snapshots from his childhood to his own son's graduation from college. Russert was a Bruce Springsteen fan, so the acoustic version of "Thunder Road" played in the background.

The final words of the show came from Russert wishing his father, "Big Russ," a Happy Father's Day and telling his son Luke that he's proud to be his dad.

It was very touching. I didn't try not to cry.
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Transcript

Some of the comments were a bit over the top. For example, this exchange:

MR. BROKAW: I always thought that if Tim had gone into the priesthood, he would have been a cardinal, or maybe...

MR. CARVILLE: A pope. Come on.

MR. BROKAW: I was going to say. The first...

Ms. KEARNS GOODWIN: Don't stop at cardinal.

MR. BROKAW: Yeah, the first holy father from this country. If he'd gone into politics, he certainly would have been a governor and maybe president of the United States. He had enormous ambition, and people need to know about that, and I mean it in the right sense of the word. He had this path that he could never have imagined as a working-class kid from Buffalo, that would take him to the summit, and he wasn't going to, he wasn't going to forfeit his opportunities along the way.

Even James Carville noted that pope was going too far.

Personally, I watched relatively little of the coverage. I watched NBC Nightly News on Friday evening and I saw the tribute on Meet the Press.

To a certain extent, I agree with those saying the coverage of Tim Russert's death has been excessive and verging on exploitation.

I'm choosing to put that debate aside. If one found the coverage to be too much, there was no need to spend the weekend watching it.

A lot of what I heard his colleagues say about Russert I already knew.

If you watched Meet the Press regularly, you knew how much he loved his family. You knew how important his Catholic faith was to him. You knew he was enthusiastic about sports and his hometown of Buffalo.

Obviously, his family, dear friends, and colleagues have experienced a sudden, terrible loss. Their grief is palpable and my heart goes out to them.

Of course, comments about Tim Russert being pope or president are silly. The love and respect that his friends have for Russert is not.