Tim Russert, titan of the fourth estate, dead at 58

I was sitting in an empty Mediterranean restaurant in Ann Arbor, Michigan, today when I heard the news: "NBC Washington Bureau chief and host of NBC's "Meet the Press" collapsed and died in his Washington office this afternoon."
The words were delivered in that sort of humdrum style that I've come to expect from National Public Radio, and they shocked me to my core.
Political junkies like me grew up with Tim Russert as the alpha and omega of Washington journalism, and his passing feels almost surreal.
Russert was simply the best interviewer I'd ever heard, and the most respected journalist of his era. He maintained a reputation for objectivity that no one before or since has rivaled.
He was a man of integrity and honesty.
I remember back in 2000, staying up late awaiting the final election night tally and watching Russert hashing out raw numbers on a dry erase board. And after it was clear that the closest presidential election in American history was to be decided by one state, Russert went back to the board and summed it all up with three words:

Florida
Florida
Florida

Nearly eight years later, I was once again up past my bedtime watching Russert and his MSNBC colleagues pouring over the returns from Democratic primaries in North Carolina and Indiana.
Clinton failed to win convincingly in Indiana after her opponent won going away in another southern primary.
That night Russert did what no one else would, or perhaps could, when he effectively brought an end to Hillary Clinton's historic campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination:
"We now know who the Democratic nominee is going to be," he said. "Sometimes the candidate is the last to recognize the best timing. It's very much like being on life support. Once they start removing the systems, you really have no choice."
In just a few sentences, Russert had ended a race that had captivated a country for more than a year.
And it wasn't profound, really; nor was it staked to information no one else had.
It commanded the headlines the next morning simply because he said it, and people trusted him.
Several weeks ago I editorialized about TV Week's list of the top ten most powerful people in News. I wasn't all too fond of their list, but it is now, and was when I first read it, quite striking to think that Russert was the first actual journalist on the list. His name was parked just below three media moguls--Capus, Ailes and Westin.
Russert was a media institution, not unlike Edward R. Murrow or Walter Cronkite before him.
I remember being surprised and saddened by the death of longtime ABC World News Tonight anchor, Peter Jennings, some years back but Russert's passing seems less distant.
Maybe, just maybe, I've spent a little too much time with Russert and his ilk over the years; or, perhaps the feeling that you know someone, even when you don't, is borne out of a phenomenon of shared interests--his passion was my passion.
Simpler still is the almost unquestionable assertion that Russert was a decent man at his core, a hero on a stage increasingly reserved for villians.
Russert was passionate about a truth-seeking vocation that chose him every bit as much as he chose it.
If only we could all be so lucky.