More Thoughts About Tim Russert

I've been watching a lot of memorials. MSNBC is practically 24/7 Tim Russert. I watched the Tim-less Meet the Press, which started with an empty chair. This picture was taken after the show, Tim's son Luke near the chair. Matt Lauer's interview with Luke the next morning on Today was beautiful. And now I'm sitting in a Gillette WY hotel, traveling for work, listening to more on the MSNBC website. So you can gain some of the benefit from all this, here are some of the most interesting, poignant points and my thoughts:

**There was a lot of talk about his faith. He was a walking advertisement for the Catholic faith. And his friends' memorials were further inspirations for the faith.

**Of all the comments about his faith, there was only one mention of him going to daily Mass - here at Vanity Fair (where his wife writes), an article written by Christopher Hitchens, author of God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. He said, "Tim was much more than a “practicing” Catholic: he was a devout and highly serious one who attended church every day."

**One of his best friends, Mike Barnicle, was asked to substitute for Chris Matthews on Hard Ball on Friday. Chris hadn't taken a day off since Thanksgiving and Mike never goes to Washington ("a town that gives me hives"), so the fact that he was there and visited with Tim minutes before he died, was considered by all to be very providential.

**The Washington NBC News office was imbued with his personality and love - they were a close-knit, loving family, much of which shown through during the coverage. Andrea Mitchell said the best way to describe him was that he played the role of a parish priest at the Washington bureau.

**Some people thought it was cruel, I thought it was fitting and profound, that this lover of fatherhood died on Father's Day weekend.

**There were so many stories about how he would find out about someone, especially children or older parents of employees, who was suffering and he would follow up with them. One son of an employee who had cancer and lost his hair received a hat from Tim and then he kept sending new hats as he traveled to different locations. Several employees who had babies talked about receiving notes from him written to the baby, welcoming him to the world and telling him how wonderful life is.

**His son asked if he could have his famous Florida! Florida! Florida! white board and Tim was really touched, until Luke said, "You know what that thing will bring in on eBay?"