I was going to respond to Paul Tuns' rebuke of my post on Tim Russert, in which he cast doubt on my assertion that Russert's questions were "terrifying", but I see he's apologized. That wasn't necessary, but what I was going to say in response is that the reason people went on the show anyway was because there wasn't a choice. Meet the Press is the highest-rated Sunday show and everyone expected the week's top news makers to undergo Russert's relentless grilling. It was a given in Washington that if you were involved in the top story that week, you had to go on Russert's show.
I must say the tributes on the NBC networks have been quite moving, especially from people like Matt Lauer and Tom Brokaw. It just confirms that the person you saw on TV was exactly the same way in private. He was a universally loved person.
(Someone emailed to ask if I had ever met Russert. No, I had not. But I have spoken to his wife, the journalist Maureen Orth.)
UPDATE: Great obituary here by Thomas Sowell.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 10:15 PM
