Tim Russert

I was sad to hear that Tim Russert died today at 58. He represented one of the last of the genial TV-news hosts in a field of openly biased shouters, and for that he was appreciated. There are times he should have been a lot more confrontational — the Iraq war buildup never did have a highly prominent critic in the media, and neither did much of anything involving the government in the years between 2001 and 2005 or so — but I did appreciate Russert’s sense of reasoned discourse and his strong Rust Belt roots. (It’s too bad that the Bills never did get that championship.) Sorry to the family for their loss.