Brokaw Remembers Russert

From the New York Times Sunday Magazine’s annual “The Lives They Lived” issue:

Tim Russert was in the next generation of broadcast journalists, and his role model was none of the above. As he often told me, Tim was a John Madden man. Madden, the large, rumpled former coach of the Oakland Raiders who became the N.F.L.’s premier television analyst, is the guy at the end of the bar whom the patrons turn to when they need some working-class wisdom.

Tim filled the same role on “Meet the Press.” Like Madden, he was determined — no, he was fiercely committed — not to let his celebrity and fat paycheck alter his South Buffalo DNA. I think he believed even a spritz of hairspray would deaden his brain cells (and who’s to say he was wrong?). …

A few years ago, he asked me to check on the prospects of a farm-state candidate for governor who spent part of every year on Nantucket and adopted some of the local customs. I called a friend in the candidates state to get an assessment, and he said simply, “He doesn’t wear socks.” Tim roared when I passed along the observation, and we often used that expression — “He doesn’t wear socks” — as shorthand for politicians who were tone-deaf.

Tim and I spent a lot of time together during our 25 years of friendship. I’ve met John Madden only once, before a Giants-Eagles game at the Meadowlands. But in that brief encounter I noticed another common characteristic between these two masters of their game: They both wore socks.

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