Thursday, June 19, 2008
The last speaker at the service was Russert’s son, who called his dad ‘my best friend.’
WASHINGTON (AP) — The crowd at Tim Russert’s funeral Wednesday would have made a great panel on his Sunday morning news show.
The two men vying to become president, Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain, were there, as were members of Congress, television journalists and several generations of politicians from both parties.
Obama and McCain sat next to each other at the private service, per a request by the Russert family. Later in the day, former President Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton joined several hundred of Russert’s friends and colleagues at a memorial service televised by MSNBC.
Russert, the host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” died Friday of a heart attack. He was 58.
Tom Brokaw opened the memorial service by lifting a bottle of Rolling Rock beer to salute his fallen colleague.
“We are going to do it Irish style,” Brokaw, who pilfered the Rolling Rock from Russert’s cooler, said at the service held at the Kennedy Center. “There will be some tears, some laughs, and the occasional truth.”
Speakers included Maria Shriver, Mario Cuomo, Mike Barnicle and even the nun who taught Russert in the seventh grade. It ended with Russert’s 22-year-old son Luke.
“He regarded a day greeted without real enthusiasm as a sadly lost opportunity,” said Cuomo, the former New York governor for whom Russert worked as an aide in the early 1980s.
Shriver, California’s first lady and member of the Kennedy family, recalled how Russert tried to help get her daughter into Boston College, which Luke attended.
Russert, who also was the Washington bureau chief for NBC News, was known for conducting tough interviews of Washington’s most powerful politicians, yet he evoked an everyman quality that showed his blue-collar, Buffalo, N.Y., roots. Part of that came from his sometimes rumpled appearance.
The crowd entering the Kennedy Center heard music from Russert’s iPod, including Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird.” The memorial ended with a video tribute by Bruce Springsteen, who was touring in Europe.
Among the politicians at the memorial service were former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Luke Russert gave the eulogy. His mother and Russert’s widow, Maureen Orth, looked on.
“My dad was my best friend,” Luke Russert said, his voice strong and clear. “To explain my bond with my father is utterly impossible to put into words.”