Tim Russert, 1950-2008"

...She had said nothing...

...Tim followed moments later...

...Evidently, the experience of meeting Milton Coleman was nearly as important to Hugo Ch?vez as the chance to flatter Ch?vez was welcome to Coleman: “He squared his shoulders...

...I told him not to worry—“It’s cable...

...He worked the crowd like a master politician,” wrote Coleman of Ch?vez, “shaking hands, gazing into women’s eyes, glad-handing the American visitors who’d just heard him fulminate against his enemies du jour...

...Not a big deal, I thought, it’s cable...

...After each show that features a political roundtable, Russert would sit with his guests for a catered breakfast...

...He only had one...

...Russert, who has made a living making guests on his show uncomfortable, went out of his way to make us feel comfortable...

...He had dropped his tie as he was exiting the cab that had brought him to the studio...

...Tim Russert was an impressive and admirable man, and while Washington can be an insincere town, the almost universal expressions of grief at his passing are genuine and, if I can put it this way, completely deserved...

...I called one of the other panelists, Politico’s Jonathan Martin, to see if he had an extra...

...In one sense, it is not surprising that Janet Cooke’s editor should have his head turned by a Latin tyrant, but THE SCRAPBOOK is surprised that the Post would broadcast the evidence...

...Hugo Ch?vez may be many things,” wrote Coleman, “and the United States believes he’s a danger to stability in Latin America...

...It’s cable...

...In one brief paragraph, when Coleman acknowledged that Ch?vez has his detractors, their status and identity were reduced to “they say...

...I told this to Tim’s executive producer, Betsy Fischer...

...I don’t typically get nervous before doing a television show, but I was quite anxious about my first appearance on Meet the Press...

...But one thing he is not: a joke...

...When I arrived, Tim greeted me warmly and engaged me in a 20-minute conversation, mostly about football and family...

...William Kristol The Washington pundit world divides into roughly two kinds of people: those interested in themselves first, issues second, and other people, if at all, a distant third...

...He looked me up and down, taking full measure of this tall, darkskinned American before him...

...Martin arrived in something of a panic...

...None of us will wear one,” he said...

...NBC’s political director, Chuck Todd, walked in as we were getting makeup...

...Somehow THE SCRAPBOOK doesn’t imagine Milton Coleman being charmed by George W. Bush, or John McCain, greeting him with a sheepish grin and “Black power...

...I remember thinking afterwards that he was remarkably unchanged from the guy I’d met 30 years before...

...I first met Tim when Pat Moynihan was running for the Senate in 1976, in New York’s Democratic primary...

...THE SCRAPBOOK thinks some bubbling took place at the Washington Post last week when it printed a story by Milton Coleman headlined “Hugo Ch?vez: Portrait of a Man With Many Faces...

...Well—not Ch?vez, anyway...

...The balance of his story was a combination of old-fashioned moral equivalency —“It was a remarkable defense, certainly unlike anything to be expected at the White House”—euphemism—“ Ch?vez first tried to be president . . . by masterminding a military coup d’etat”—and tactical employment of the passive voice...

...I was 23 years old, working for the campaign as deputy issues director...

...Then he moved over to work for Mario Cuomo when he became governor of New York, served him equally well—and then went to NBC, where he of course became a star in his own right...

...Tim gave the commencement address at the 2007 Washington University graduation in St...

...Sentences We Didn’t Finish ‘So not only has America tried to ruin the rest of the world with its wars, its financial meltdown and its stupid stupid food, it has allowed its own literary culture to implode...

...It was just Tim being Tim...

...I was on my way to the studio when I realized I didn’t have a tie...

...He was intellectually curious and personally kind, a patriot and a family man, with a lively personality and a great and communicable interest in politics and life...

...Louis...

...Four years later, this past January, I was traveling with the McCain campaign in Florida when Betsy called last-minute to see if I could do Tim’s cable show...

...Jazz and patchwork quilts are still doing OK, but books have descended . . .” —Lucy Ellmann, New York Times Book Review, June 8...

...Then, a sheepish grin spread across his face as if he weren’t sure he could get away with the greeting he wanted to give me...

...It’s Tim Russert,” he responded...

...You wear a tie for Russert...

...The second, much smaller group is made up of people like Tim Russert, who reversed that order...

...I assumed that Betsy had told him about my nerves, and that he had gone out of his way to make me comfortable, so I asked her about it...

...When the journalists stood in line to shake the president’s hand, “Something about me caught his attention...

...I called to congratulate him on the speech—it was a good one, especially given the difficulties and limitations of the genre—and we had lunch...

...He served Pat very well—while developing a fantastic ability to mimic Pat’s distinctive manner of speaking...

...But perhaps we underestimate Coleman...

...But Coleman’s brief encounter with the Venezuelan dictator at a press junket in Caracas, and the fawning profile it yielded, took us back to the thrilling Washington Post of yesteryear, when Sally Quinn would write rapturously about Fidel Castro, and Karen DeYoung (now associate editor) would grow weak in the knees at the thought of Sandinistas...

...This sounds more important than it was...

...We hit it off in a casual way—and then, after Pat won the primary in September (by a little less than 10,000 votes out of close to a million cast), I went back to grad school to get my Ph.D., while Tim came to Washington with Pat after he won in November as a top aide...

...Tim, as I recall, was working in some capacity, formal or informal, for the Democratic boss in Buffalo, Joe Crangle, on the upstate campaign, and he came to the headquarters in Manhattan to coordinate with us...

...I explained that I didn’t have a tie because I was irresponsible and Martin didn’t have a tie because of bad luck...

...But the cheering sections for Hugo Ch?vez and his “Main Man” (Coleman’s words) Fidel Castro are now largely confined to the likes of Pacifica Radio and celebrities of the Sean Penn/Harry Belafonte school...

...I had long admired Russert and, like virtually everyone who watched the show, found him incredibly intimidating...

...Coleman is the deputy managing editor of the Post, and his name shouldn’t mean anything to readers except those with long, and very detailed, memories, who will recall his tenure in the early 1980s as city editor and mentor to a rising young reporter named Janet Cooke...

...Of course, dictators have been seducing credulous journalists since the days when Mussolini was running the trains on time, and Stalin told visiting Quakers that the death penalty had been abolished in the Soviet Union...

...Stephen F. Hayes Dictator Love Sometimes stories appear in newspapers that seem to have slipped in through a hidden entrance, or floated downstairs from the publisher’s office, or bubbled up from the cauldron of the past...

...Pat didn’t need much help on issues, and there were only two of us in the issues shop...

...My wife and I were there because one of my daughters was in the graduating class...

...But he did it anyway, saying ‘Black power’ and extending his hand for a shake...

...Well, Ms...

...Cooke and her mythical eightyearold heroin addict, Pulitzer Prize triumph, and subsequent scandal are very nearly ancient history now, and everyone has moved on...

...We chatted briefly about the show and politics, but spent most of the time talking about things that matter more—football and family...