The Gold Standard
Tim Russert's legacy—in politics and in life
Everybody in Washington has a million stories about Tim Russert. Here is one of mine.
I was in Florida for a primary-season debate not long ago and wandered into a restaurant near the site the night before the event and there was Russert. We hailed each other and sat down for a bite.
No sooner had he taken a seat than his cell phone rang. It was a family friend from his hometown of Buffalo, where he had been born and where his aging father still lived. "I gotta take this," he said, interrupting what had, for me, already been an enlightening few minutes of purposeful chat about the Democratic presidential race.
Turns out, as Tim explained to me a few minutes later when he sat down again, that he had essentially rigged, from long distance, a system for taking care of his father that allowed his dad to stay in the home he had lived in for decades, and in which Tim had been reared. "Big Russ" had lost a wife and was lonely and in failing health, but the last thing he wanted to do was leave his family surroundings in South Buffalo.
So Tim had put his organizational and political skills to work and, largely over the phone, had arranged for (and in some cases paid) eight caregiving friends to "drop in" on his dad on a rotating basis—every day. They would vary the order and their tasks to make it all seem casual and unrehearsed, as they used to say on TV. Tim visited whenever he could, but supplemented his attention via cell phone.
The caller had been one of the team, who told Tim that he couldn't make it over to his dad's house that night. So Tim was on the phone arranging for someone else to pull the shift. This was all in advance of a big NBC News strategy meeting and other duties.
Tim smiled and laughed as he sat back down. "My dad thinks all of these people just drop in by chance!" he said with a chuckle. "Dad says, 'these people are so nice.' Well, they are. They are incredibly kind and dedicated. All I had to do was ask."
I tell this story to give an example of Russert's essential, unaffected decency. Sure he was ambitious, but he was grounded in his faith, his family and his roots so securely, that he was capable of being something most ambitious people in Washington cannot: utterly at ease with himself and therefore capable of treating everyone with respect.
And I tell this story to ask a question: After Russert, the deluge? Not to canonize him, but he operated in a way, and on an assumption, that seems all but lost in modern America: the ability to debate, to argue, with a reverence for the frail humanity of all.
We live—and we in journalism are truly immersed—in an accusatory culture that often denies the essential personhood of those we question or attack. I wrote a book in defense of the idea of argument, but without the Russerts of the world—seeking facts, demanding real answers and not rhetoric, but demanding in a respectful way—the American experiment in argument will not continue to work.
Russert's death is a blessing only in this one sense: we all need to stop and think of what he was aiming for and what he believed in, which was a country capable of governing itself through the practice of intelligent discussion and debate.
Here's a suggestion for Barack Obama and John McCain. In memory of Tim, why don't you agree to a series of genuine debates—pick whatever Russert-like moderator you can find—and have at it.
One of these candidates is going to seize the Russert spirit of persons of goodwill agreeing to disagree and yet with an eye to the common good and the national interest.
Whoever best captures that spirit will win the election.
At least that's what I think Tim would say. And that is the maddening thing about his death: he is the only person who could have put this story into its proper context.
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Howard Fineman is Newsweek's Senior Washington Correspondent and Columnist, senior editor and deputy Washington bureau chief. He is the author of "Living Politics," a column that began on MSNBC.COM and Newsweek.com and that now also appears in the print magazine. An award-winning reporter and writer, Fineman also is an analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, appearing regularly on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," "Hardball with Chris Matthews" and "TODAY." The author of scores of Newsweek cover stories, Fineman's work has appeared as well in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Republic. His 2008 national best-selling book, "The Thirteen American Arguments," was released in paperback by Random House in the spring of 2009.
One of the nation's leading political reporters, Fineman has interviewed every major presidential candidate from (then-vice president) George H.W. Bush in 1985 to (then senator) Barack Obama early and often in the 2008 campaign cycle. His current work focuses on the Obama Administration and its top officials, as well as on Congress and politics throughout the country. Although based in Washington, Fineman travels widely in the U.S. and has covered politics and other events in 49 of the 50 states.
Fineman's work has produced many milestones and awards. A cover story in November 2001 featured President George W. Bush's first extensive interview after 9/11. Another cover, "Bush and God," was part of a series of articles that won the 2003 National Magazine Award for General Excellence. His reporting has helped Newsweek win many honors from the Magazine Publishers Association and the American Journalism Review. Other awards include a "Page One" from the Headliners Club of New York, a "Silver Gavel" from the American Bar Association and a "Deadline Club" from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). In 2006 he received the Alumni Award from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
As a reporter and writer, Fineman ranges widely. Besides campaign-year covers, other projects have included: race and politics, the impact of digital technology on society, the influence of Hollywood on politics, the rise of the religious right and of conservative talk radio. He has interviewed business leaders such as George Soros, Bill Gates, Steve Case and Robert Rubin and entertainment figures such as Warren Beatty, Jane Fonda and Jay Leno.
Although now under exclusive television contract to NBC, Fineman over the years has appeared on major public affairs shows, such as Nightline, Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday, Larry King Live, Charlie Rose and the NewsHour. He was a regular panelist on Washington Week in Review on PBS (1983-95) and on CNN's Capital Gang Sunday (1995-98). He worked with Ted Koppel on Nightline specials, and has been a guest on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report."
A native of Pittsburgh, Fineman began his career at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, covering the environment, the coal industry and state politics before joining the newspaper's Washington bureau in 1978. He moved to Newsweek in 1980, was named chief political correspondent in 1984, deputy Washington bureau chief in 1993, senior editor in 1995 and senior Washington correspondent and columnist in 2008.
Fineman holds an A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Colgate, an M.S. in journalism from Columbia and a J.D. from the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. His legal education included a year as a visiting student at the Georgetown University Law Center. He received Watson and Pultizer Traveling Fellowships for study in Europe, Russia and the Middle East, and has traveled to more than 40 countries, among them China, Vietnam, Japan, Ukraine, Israel, Turkey and the West Bank Palestinian Territories.
Fineman is married to Amy L. Nathan, a senior counsel at the Federal Communications Commission. They live in Washington with their two children, Meredith and Nicholas.
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