The Master

When I was 17 years old, I watched Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" for the very first time.  He was interviewing and instigating a most fabulous debate between James Carville (Democratic political analyst) and Mary Matlin (Republican political analyst) about the then upcoming 1996 presidential election between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole.  It was this discussion that solidified my obsession with political analysis and "stra-tee-gery" (as George Bush would say) to start to build and shine up my rickety and naively built soap boxes.  As my political opinions developed and matured, my appreciation for Tim's political journalism became a Sunday morning ritual--coffee, "Meet the Press" and debating the TV.  

I'm not going to lie...within the past 6 months I've had to shake my fist at Tim a couple times, because he just wouldn't back off my girl Hillary.  In fact, I even put my constructive feedback about Tim being mesmerized and befuzzled by Obama's dreamy eyes into an email and sent it to NBC: "Meet the Press."  But, even with that said, no one can deliver a debate question or go after Dick Cheney quite like Tim.  

I will miss the informed standard Tim brought to the arena of politics, especially on Election Night when he would pull out his portable dry erase board and give commentary on the election status by working mathematical "delegate" equations that I believe only he understood.   But most of all I will miss the words uttered by Tim each week, "That's all for today.  We'll be back next week.  If it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press."