Tim Russert was unique player in the media profession. Given his political background and career stops, he was no doubt ideologically pretty far apart from my views, but this was rarely evident to me in his professional conduct and he was clearly a cut above the other mainstream media hacks in his professionalism and work ethic. Aside from the extensive coverage of his untimely death last month, which highlighted his very deep and attractive sense of family and bedrock American values, the quote of his that I most respected was reported by Bernard Goldberg in an article on Russert’s views on media bias and the criticism of some journalists for their alleged lack of independence in reporting the war on terror: “It is imperative that we never suggest that there’s a moral equivalency between the United States of America and the terrorists. Period. I’ll believe that until the day I die.” Unique indeed. We’ll miss that.
