"A PATRIOT AND A FAMILY MAN":

Tim Russert, 1950-2008 ( William Kristol, June 13, 2008, Weekly Standard)

Tim gave the commencement address at the 2007 Washington University graduation in St. Louis. My wife and I were there because one of our daughters was in the graduating class. 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. I remember thinking afterwards that he was remarkably unchanged from the guy I’d met thirty years before. 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.

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