My first reaction to this news was “motherfucker,” and in the way that your brain gets stuck on a single word when you burn your finger or stub your toe, I still can’t really get past that first thought.
For someone like me, someone whose heros are political commentators and sharp writers like Peggy Noonan and Maureen Dowd, Meet the Press was no question the single best show on television. You can ponder in front of Lost, you can feel inspired by Heroes, you can even laugh at Scrubs’ whimsy. But nowhere but NBC on Sunday mornings could you find the kind of consistently outstanding commentary that I’ve come to associate with Tim Russert.
In a sign of how badly we need people like Tim, people who bring passion and unflagging professionalism to a field crowded with wacky performers and those concerned more with target audience than truth, CNN.com’s top story today was “R. Kelly acquitted of child porn.”