I've said it (and you've read it) many times before, I am a political animal. More often than not in the last 15 years I have looked to a voice that is now sadly, suddenly silenced to form, or confirm, my opinions.

    My kids, mates, friends all knew we didn't go to breakfast on Sunday before MEET THE PRESS was over. Between 8 and 9 on Sunday morning you didn't call me, and if you did, I didn't answer. Even more than the network [NBC] who's Washington Bureau he guided (some say built), these last few years his imprint on MSNBC has made it my constant background, in office and home.

    To have the combination of insight and brass balls to build a network that counted among it's personalities a range from Pat Buchanan to Keith Olbermann was simply genius. And all to a Springsteen soundtrack. Imagine...
 
    The last 18 hours or so, I have been as tearfully transfixed by his co-worker's coverage [flipping between NBC and MSNBC], as I always was, gleefully, by his contributions to both channels. Again, I am a political animal, and the word of Tim Russert was my manna.

    But to really understand the love and absolute respect he engendered, one need only look at the interview Matt Lauer did this morning with VP Cheney. For the last 8 years he's been in the public eye, Mr. Cheney has [quite rightfully] always been seen as the leader of the evil empire; Darth Vader incarnate. Yet he's never seemed more human, more touched by anything, than he obviously was by Tim's passing.

    I don't know how we, as a country, will get through this election cycle without his wit and wisdom. I am not especially religious, but it's said God takes the good ones early to help him. Tim is at his side.