Chanteyranger, I did not know him well, and I doubt he would have remembered me - I met him a couple of times when he did his show out of our NJ facility where I was a production manager overseeing the crews and the broadcast of his show.   Over the years I had the honor of meeting many people in the industry, and I can honestly say that most of them were not very impressive. At CNBC there were a lot of business reporters who were real prima donnas - and could not accept that their small niche did not make them "stars". I also saw some very well known figures in broadcast journalism - and probably journalism is not the word to be used for the crap they produced.

Tim Russert was different. The respect that he had was genuine. The person you saw on camera was the person I saw off camera. I remember how striking it was to see him take the time to walk into a control room to thank everyone. That seems so simple, but you would be surprised how rare it is. I will always think of that and then remember that video that has shown up on You Tube of Bill O'Reilly blowing his stack at a producer, when it seemed that he was just too stupid to understand the script that was handed to him. When garbage like O'Reilly commands an audience, there is something wrong.   Russert was the exact opposite - something that every true journalist should aspire to - not the clown show that O'Reilly and others like him swill out.

My memory might be hazy after so many years, but I seem to recall that one of the times he came to Fort Lee was because he was taking his son to a ballgame in NY. I could be wrong about that - but from what everyone saw, and from those that really knew him, I only heard good things about a guy who was at the top of his field but knew that his family was still the most important aspect of his life. He loved his job and worked harder than most, but he knew how to balance.