Rest in Peace

Tim Russert, 1950-2008

Amid all the shouting heads on cable TV and the networks, he was tough and smart and yet always a gentleman. He could pull clarity from grand complexity, but you never got a sense he was trying to impress. He was smart and quick and I guess you could say he had every right to be pompous, like some other people on cable TV whose names I'll not mention, but his brilliance was more matter-of-fact and accessible, and his likeable personality seemed to spring from a simple and deep sincerity. So quick with a story. So quick with insight. He made a difference. He practiced his craft the way it should be practiced. Tim Russert is gone. He will be missed.

What We Lost, 40 Years Ago Today

Today is the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Jeff Greenfield at CBS Sunday Morning, who worked with Kennedy, did a remarkable reflection on his life last week.

He has been gone almost as long as he was alive, and from a distance of four decades, Robert Kennedy is often seen as a player in a pageant: heir to a murdered President from America's most famous political family … a tumultuous presidential campaign in a tumultuous political year that ended on the floor of a hotel kitchen in Los Angeles.

And below is one of the most extraordinary extemporaneous speeches in American history, all the more remarkable if you know all the context behind it. It was a risky moment, a passionate moment, a perfectly expressed American moment.

Keep hope alive.