Void
14 June 2008 6:00 am by Taylor Marsh
People are talking a lot about the Tim Russert they knew. Tom Brokaw, Andrea
Mitchell, Bryan Williams… the list is endless. I never met Tim, and he certainly
never knew me. I haven't lost a friend. I've lost an every day, especially on
Sunday, political adversary.
I've been doing “count the women on the Sunday shows” for years.
Tim Russert was always a major target of mine. No personal animus, just a perplexing
question on why so few women, especially on the progressive side, ever made
it on his show. This was particularly true when it came to covering women's issues like
reproductive rights, but also religion, and especially foreign policy. On a regular basis Russert's guest list drove me to distraction.
When Sunday would roll around, maybe with Kate O'Beirne or Maureen Dowd, Mary
Matalin, Gwen Ifill, you know, the usual suspects would show up, but Democratic
women? Doris Kearns Goodwin, but she's an historian not an analyst. Then there
was Hillary Clinton, who drove Mr. Russert right off the rails. It can happen
to any journalist, with Clinton being Russert's Achilles' heel on bias. He just
couldn't swing fairness with her. On that score alone, I let Russert have it
regularly. In fact, the fall debate was a big moment in the primary sexism wars
for me, when Tim took a pounding, from which I don't think he ever fully recovered his reputation.
That said, no one else could have served up Edwards, Obama and Clinton squirming, none of them able to pledge to be out of Iraq by 2013. It was Russert and Russert alone that elicited that bombshell.
I also never, ever, ever missed “Meet the Press.” As much as I argued
with him every week in my living room, he was the very definition of must see
TV for me. I disagreed with him a lot, but I always wanted to know what he said.
I always hoped he'd come around, especially when it came to Hillary. He never
did.
I'll never know what made him ask men on to discuss religion, while women were
absent. Or why women were left out when reproductive rights were discussed.
But I have one thought on it that it's as good a time as any to share. Tim Russert
was a devout Catholic. Women aren't leaders in that church. Likely it rubbed
off. How could it not? As for reproductive rights, something tells me the subject
with Democratic pro choice women, especially on Sunday morning, wasn't his idea
of proper political TV.
People who know him write of his joy of life. His love for his family, especially
his son, Luke, and his father “Big Russ” (a former sanitation worker), guy love easier to talk about than the
love for his wife Vanity Fair columnist Maureen Orth. Looking at Russert's face when he
talked about them all, you just knew it had to be true. His love of sports was
always a joy to hear him share. Such life.
However, for me as a writer, a feminist working to make people see that more
women need to be represented on TV, especially on the Sunday shows where political
opinion is set, particularly on foreign policy, Tim Russert was my number one
adversary for many, many years. …and now… he's gone. It just doesn't seem quite fair.
It leaves an incredible void. Huge, in fact. Because no matter how loud I ranted
at Russert, I knew I was talking to someone, trying to get through to someone
that mattered, but also represented a vein running through our political bloodstream.
He was simply a man who shaped the journalism of the time, as well as called
out the politicians who came before him, but made mistakes like humans do. After all, we're talking about a journalist, but his bigger than life personality made him a political opinion maker of gigantic
proportions.
“Meet the Press” will go on. But Sunday won't be the same anymore.
A worthy adversary is silent.
Florida-Florida-Florida.
