[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 111 (Tuesday, July 8, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1410-E1411]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         A TRIBUTE TO TIMOTHY RUSSERT BY WILLIAM O'SHAUGHNESSY

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                           HON. NITA M. LOWEY

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 8, 2008

  Mrs. LOWEY. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Timothy Russert by 
submitting for the record a tribute to him by the Buffalo, New York 
native, William O'Shaughnessy on June 16, 2008. ``A Death in the 
Family'' was broadcast on WVOX and WVIP in New York.

                         A Death in the Family

       And although we were in the care and keeping of the German 
     Jesuits some ten years apart, Russert and I both got whacked 
     upside the head by the same worn old leather prayer book 
     belonging to the Reverend John

[[Page E1411]]

     Sturm, SJ., who took most seriously his title and high 
     estate: Prefect of Discipline.
       Father John was built like a fireplug. And although an 
     equal opportunity disciplinarian, he made Timmy Russert his 
     favorite charge almost from the minute he first encountered 
     the personable Irish youngster from South Buffalo with the 
     bright eyes and easy smile. That was back in the 60's and 
     they have been friends ever since. Canisius has turned out 
     federal judges named Crotty and Arcara, political power 
     brokers like Joe Crangle, big car dealers, stellar athletes 
     including a few Holy Cross and Notre Dame quarterbacks, and 
     doctors and lawyers of great renown. The Jesuits spotted 
     Russert's beguiling potential early on. Even then they knew.
       He would go back to Buffalo over the years to see his 
     father and during summers better than this one Tim Russert 
     would sit at Cole's bar in the Elmwood section to talk sports 
     over a beer and a ``beef on a weck,'' Buffalo's legendary 
     version of roast beef, a steamship round of which was 
     personally carved by the bartender and then piled on a 
     Kimmelweck roll covered with salt to be dipped in Heinz 
     Ketchup. The music in the air on those nights was provided by 
     ancient tapes of Fred Klestine's old radio programs from the 
     50's and 60's which survive to this day at Cole's.
       They would order another Simon Pure beer or a Carling's ale 
     and talk about the rich girls who went to ``The Mount,'' a 
     boarding school, and about Johnny Barnes, the old Canisius 
     High football coach and sometimes about Cornelius 
     MacGillicudy, a favorite teacher who owned a bar in the 
     Parkside section over near Delaware Park.
       He never lost touch with the Jesuits. And just a few weeks 
     ago, Father Sturm, now in his 90's, sent out invitations to a 
     scholarship luncheon in his own honor with the obligatory 
     picture of his protege Tim Russert on the cover.
       Before his dazzling work on television which made him 
     famous, Tim labored in the service of the two brightest minds 
     in public life during our time: Daniel Patrick Moynihan and 
     the estimable Mario M. Cuomo.
       Someone said yesterday on television: ``He wasn't exactly a 
     pretty boy.'' With his cheeks and jowls, Russert was the 
     complete antithesis of all the hyper, vacuous ``talking 
     heads'' and all the bimbos--male as well as female--who sit 
     each day in those anchor chairs praying the teleprompter 
     doesn't fail lest they be forced to utter something more 
     profound than ``absolutely!''
       Only Chris Matthews was his equal in terms of depth and 
     intelligence. And maybe Jon Meacham or Lawrence O'Donnell or 
     Peggy Noonan. George Stephanopoulos can hold his own in front 
     of a camera (and in front of George Will). And classy Deborah 
     Norville has a brain. While among the youngsters coming up--
     William ``Billy'' Bush and Chris Cuomo are bursting with 
     intelligence and promise. Ditto Bill Geist's kid Willy. And 
     David Gregory and Tucker Carlson are easy to take. Barbara 
     Walters and Diane Sawyer are class acts in any season.
       We've always liked Bob Scheiffer and Judy Woodruff. And how 
     can you not like Mike Barnicle and Joe Scarborough (but not 
     the girl with him, the one with the famous father, who talks 
     over everybody). And I hope Larry King, like Paul Harvey on 
     the radio, goes on forever. Plus I still take pleasure in our 
     infrequent sightings of Rather and Brokaw.
       Russert, however, operated on a level far beyond most of 
     them. And he didn't need high tech production values or fancy 
     overhead lighting in an ultra-modern studio to enhance and 
     amplify his unique genius. He was to network news what Mario 
     Cuomo is to public discourse. And as the great Cuomo himself 
     reminded us, ``Tim never forgot where he came from and he 
     never let us forget it either . . . and we loved him for 
     it.''
       He would summer on Nantucket and go to parties at Sally 
     Quinn's in Washington. But Russert never denied his roots in 
     Buffalo. There was a realness about him, a genuineness, on 
     and off the air.
       A few summers ago, Russert was the main speaker at an 
     important conference of the New York State Broadcasters 
     Association up at Bolton Landing on Lake George. After his 
     talk he was persuaded by our mutual friend Joe Reilly, the 
     head of the broadcasters in the Empire State, to linger and 
     give out the Association's Awards for Excellence . . . even 
     as an NBC plane waited on the tarmac at the nearby Glens 
     Falls airport to rush him back to Washington.
       There were many awards and citations in every category. But 
     Russert was his usual generous self and so he stayed late 
     into the night as the awards presentations wore on. And when 
     it was announced that your own WVOX had won the designation 
     for ``Best Editorials in New York State'' (which we clearly 
     did not deserve), Russert arched his eyebrows and the Irish 
     eyes twinkled as my son David and I advanced to the front of 
     the ballroom to receive our award.
       As we posed for the cameras and the flashbulbs popped, Tim 
     asked, sotto voce, ``How's Mario? . . . how's Nancy? . . . 
     how are the kids? . . . how's the station?'' And now as my 
     mind drifts back on this weekend after he died, I wonder if I 
     remembered to inquire about his own welfare? I hope so, but I 
     doubt it, given that heady moment in the spotlights. But he 
     remembered.
       Russert then thoughtfully pulled away my son David for a 
     shot with just the two of them . . . and said, again on the 
     QT, while still smiling for the cameras, ``How the hell did 
     your old man win this damn thing . . . it must have been by 
     shear guile! Or did Cuomo write it for him?'' As the two of 
     them cracked up with laughter, no one in the audience of more 
     than 500 had a clue what they were chuckling about.
       James O'Shea, who owns The West Street Grill, a high class 
     saloon in Litchfield, Connecticut (he much prefers the 
     designation ``fine dining establishment'') called while I was 
     thinking about all this. According to O'Shea, ``Russert 
     possessed the genius of the Irish. Just say he was Irish. 
     People will know what that means. He was Irish!'' As O'Shea 
     provides libation and sustenance for the likes of Philip 
     Roth, Rex Reed, Jim Hoge, Bill vandenHeuvel, Rose Styron, 
     George Clooney, Peter Duchin and Brooke Hayward . . . I will 
     bow to his wisdom. Russert did indeed have the genius of the 
     Irish.
       Nancy and I would see him around town of an evening, when 
     he would come up from Washington to do some business at the 
     NBC Universal mother ship at Rockefeller Center or if one of 
     us had to emcee a dinner. And no matter how late the hour or 
     how tired and rumpled he appeared, it was always the same: 
     ``How are the kids? . . . how are the stations doing? . . . 
     how's the gov?''
       NBC delayed the news of his passing and actually got 
     scooped by the New York Post and the Times until someone from 
     their shop was retrieved to go and inform his wife Maureen 
     Orth, their son Luke, and his beloved father Big Russ. But 
     who, I wonder, had to knock on the door of the old priest in 
     the Jesuit retirement house on Washington Street up in 
     Buffalo to tell Father John Sturm, S.J. Timmy Russert was 
     gone?
       I always thought Russert would have made a wonderful 
     politician himself or a great teacher. Or even a priest. And 
     with his sudden, untimely departure at 58, he probably taught 
     us one more lesson learned from the old Jesuits: ``You know 
     not the hour . . . or the moment.''
       The newsman-journalist known as Tim Russert has been 
     mourned by millions and eulogized in all the journals and 
     periodicals in the land. But the most exquisite tribute, and 
     probably the one he would have liked the most came from 
     Michelle Spuck, a waitress at Bantam Pizza in the Litchfield 
     hills, who told a customer over the weekend, ``I'm so sad 
     about this . . . I never met him . . . but I knew him.''
       He died in front of a microphone.
       This is Bill O'Shaughnessy.

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