Tim Russert and the Follies of Life By Richard John Neuhaus

The outpouring of tributes to Tim Russert on his death at age 58 was both surprising and well deserved. There was a palpable sense of guilt in the many descriptions of him by his colleagues in the commentariat. They frequently seemed to be saying that he was such a genuine human being uncompromised by stardom when the rest of them, having achieved only a small measure of his success, had become phonies of one kind of another. True, there were a few curmudgeons, such as Michael Kinsley, who accused Russert of “downward social climbing,” of playing the good ol’ boy shtick for all it was worth. As the show business adage has it, Once you’ve learned to fake sincerity, the rest comes easy. I don’t believe that about Tim Russert.

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