“It’s truly a news organization that acts its age: a petulant 5-year-old concerned with only trivial matters,” says David Gregory roasting Politico on its 5th birthday. Politico.com launched Jan. 23, 2007, the day of that year’s State of the Union address. Early this morning, the site put up this video with well-wishes from tvnewsers including Bob Schieffer, Katie Couric, Dan Rather, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Willie Geist, Diane Sawyer, Candy Crowley, Norah O’Donnell, Luke Russert, Greta Van Susteren, Tom Brokaw, Chris Matthews, Jonathan Karl, Andrea Mitchell, Erin Burnett, Alex Wagner, Al Sharpton, and Dylan Ratigan.

The party’s still going at the Edison Ballroom in Times Square as the “Today” show celebrates its 60th anniversary. The morning milestone began with a welcome from “Today” frontman Matt Lauer before singer Pit Bull took the stage.

Fourth hour hosts Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford were early arrivals, with Kotb (below) front and center during Pit Bull’s set. We spotted NBC News president Steve Capus and “Today” EP Jim Bell working the room, as longtime EP and, later NBCU president Jeff Zucker was deep in conversation with former “Today” anchor Meredith Vieira.

“Today” senior broadcast producer Don Nash, who’s been with the show more than a third of its life — 23 years — tells TVNewser tomorrow’s anniversary program is not to be missed. All former living on air talent — save for Joe Garagiola and Gene Shalit who aren’t able to make it — will be a part of the show. And we spotted many of them at the party tonight, including Tom Brokaw, Katie Couric, (above) Barbara Walters, John Palmer and Hugh Downs.

NBC spared no expense flying in correspondents from other NBC bureaus including Andrea Mitchell, Kerry Sanders, Kevin Tibbles, Janet Shamlian and Luke Russert.

Brian Williams stopped in after “Nightly News.” And we chatted with “Today” anchors Savannah Guthrie, Jenna Wolfe and Amy Robach, here with husband Andrew Shue, and said hello to Willard Scott on our way out. Other “Today” regulars celebrating  included Jill Rappaport, Martha Stewart, the Scotto family and Bobby Flay. We chatted with Andy Cohen (mostly about NeNe Leakes) who later tonight will be interviewing Rosie O’Donnell on his Bravo show, “Watch What Happens Live.”

Rounding out the crowd: Willie Geist, Jeff Rossen, Martin Bashir, Carl Quintanilla, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Tyler Mathisen, MSNBC president Phil Griffin and CNBC president Mark Hoffman and many more I may have missed. Because, as I said, the party is still going. Then, tomorrow at 7am, “Today” takes the party nationwide.

Andrea Mitchell and Jeff Zucker

Kerry Sanders and Jenna Wolfe

(Photos: Chris Ariens)

Viewers of MSNBC’s “Daily Rundown” this morning may have noticed a new face behind the anchor chair.

Correspondent Luke Russert, who typically wanders the halls of Congress for the network, made his anchoring debut this morning, in place of a vacationing Chuck Todd. Russert will fill-in for Todd through Wednesday.

Last week, Washington Post columnist Chris Cillizza filled in on the program.

NBC’s Luke Russert is the subject of a profile in the Buffalo News, hometown newspaper of his late father, Tim Russert. It chronicles Russert’s rough start at NBC in 2008, just weeks after his father had died, to “that watershed Weiner interview” this past June.

While he’s most often compared to his father, Luke Russert also carries the journalistic traits of his mother, Vanity Fair writer, Maureen Orth:

She has passed down to him her “EEEPPP” rule of journalism: energy, enthusiasm, empathy, polite, prepared, persistent.

CBS Newsman Bob Schieffer predicts Russert will end up anchoring a nightly newscast someday: “He just does what

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The debt deal negotiations Sunday kept some anchors working all day (and night) long.

On ABC, George Stephanopoulos appeared on every ABC News program, co-anchoring “Good Morning America,” Sunday public affairs show “This Week,” and “ABC World News.” He would also anchor ABC’s special report that evening announcing that the deal was done.

On CNN, Ali Velshi appeared during the 2 PM, 3 PM, 8 PM and 9 PM hours, and was back on at 5 AM this morning to anchor “Wake Up Call,” according to TVEyes. Update: Don’t forget Wolf Blitzer, who has been on-air every day since last weekend, as well as Gloria Borger, who was all over the debt coverage over the weekend, and who got Sen. Mitch McConnell to acknowledge that they were “very close to a deal” on Sunday’s “State of the Union.”

Update: Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network’s Neil Cavuto had an exceptionally long day as well. After appearing on “Fox & Friends” in the 9 AM hour Sunday, Cavuto was also on during the 10 AM, 12 PM and 2 PM hours before anchoring his program at 4 PM. He would also appear on FNC at 6 and 7 PM, and was on “Fox & Friends” in the 8 AM hour this morning.

Update 2: From an NBC News spokeswoman:

“Chuck Todd, Mike Viqueria, Andrea Mitchell, Kelly O’Donnell, and Luke Russert reported from dawn until way past dusk for both NBC and MSNBC. Between the five of them, they covered Today and Meet the Press, continuous live coverage on MSNBC dayside, through Nightly and its west coast updates.  Luke has been on air past 11pm the past 7 nights, and of course Chuck and Andrea both anchor hours every weekday.”

Were any other anchors pulling an extra long shift yesterday? Let us know in the comments.

It is Fathers Day here in the U.S., and to help celebrate, dads were top of mind for many a TV news personality the last few days. On Fox Business Network Friday, David Asman invited his father, former NBC News special events producer Robert Asman, to talk about lessons learned from the great depression:

Elsewhere, in Parade magazine, NBC’s Luke Russert writes about his father, the late, great Tim Russert:

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The Hill reports the late NBC News man Tim Russert received a death threat in 2001. According to Russert’s FBI file, obtained by The Hill, a 75-year-old WWII veteran apparently left two threatening phone messages on Russert’s NBC office phone.

A partial transcript of one call reads:

We haven’t forgotten I’ve called you a couple years ago and we still got you on the f—king platter. Believe you me, motherf—ker. That goes for your 15- or 16-year-old kid, too. You protect him, you motherf—ker. You’re no good, you’re absolutely no good…

The call was left March 7, 2001. The FBI tracked the call to the man in San Francisco, who refused to admit he left the voicemail, but promised not to make any more threatening calls. The FBI closed the case. Tim Russert died three years ago this week. Luke Russert is now a correspondent with NBC News.

NBC’s Luke Russert, Fox News’s Bret Baier, CBS’s Nancy Cordes, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and ABC’s Jonathan Karl have all gotten sit-down interviews with Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) this afternoon. The one-on-one interviews come after a testy, not-much-of-a-news conference yesterday at which journalists were trying to get to the bottom of a Twitter-versy involving the Congressman. At issue: who Tweeted, from @anthonyweiner, a picture of a man in his underwear to a 21-year-old woman in Seattle? And who is the picture of? Here’s Russert’s interview. Baier’s will air tonight on “Special Report” and Blitzer’s on “The Situation Room” was live on CNN in the 4pmET hour.

The Russert family in the Vatican Library in June 2008. (Courtesy: Russert family/NBC News)

This morning, about an hour before the “Today” show went on the air, co-anchor Matt Lauer had an audience with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican, a rare event for most anyone. But the groundwork for this reporting trip goes back more than three years.

“Today” show EP Jim Bell tells TVNewser the Vatican was “a particular passion of Tim Russert‘s.” Russert, the Washington Bureau chief for NBC News, had his own audience with Pope Benedict XVI just days before he died, three years ago this month. Russert died of a heart attack in the Washington Bureau. His family — wife Maureen Orth and son Luke Russert — were still in Europe concluding what had been a family vacation.

“Tim and I had been working on a trip for TODAY that he was going to be a part of,” Bell says. But the 2008 election started to heat up. “So we decided to hold off until after the election.” Russert died June 13, 2008.

“A trip to the Vatican and an audience with Pope Benedict still ranked high on the show’s ‘to do’ list,” Bell says. The show had been planning it for this past March, but the news cycle — the Arab Spring and the earthquake and tsunami in Japan — led to another postponement.

Lauer along with Al Roker were in St. Peter’s Square this morning, and afterward shared a private moment with the pontiff and New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan. Today, Dolan will give Lauer and Roker a private tour through the Basilica including a look at Pope John Paul II’s newly installed tomb — the first look for an American broadcast. NBC’s Anne Thompson will examine how the church has embraced social media. Those stories air tomorrow on a split edition of “Today.”

Seeming to put politics aside for a few hours — not one but two GOP governors stopped in to the MSNBC After Party last night at the Italian Embassy in Washington DC: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — often the target of MSNBC’s opinionated hosts — and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (right, meeting NBC News correspondent Luke Russert for the first time). Palin, as we reported yesterday, was the guest of Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren.

As MSNBC host/mixologist Rachel Maddow made a drink for “Glee’s” Jane Lynch, MSNBC boss Phil Griffin, worked the room. It’s his after party afterall. And not missing an opportunity to synergize, Cee lo Green, of NBC’s “The Voice” was the entertainment.

In addition to Van Susteren, we spotted Bret Baier from Fox News chatting with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie. NBC News president Steve Capus and “Today” show EP Jim Bell — who’d both just returned from London covering the Royal Wedding and sharing ratings info on his Blackberry. Looks like “Today” was #1 again on Royal Wedding day. (Final numbers later on TVNewser).

Eliot Spitzer in tow with CNN’s chief communicator Christa Robinson; Roland Martin, David Bohrman, and Sam Feist also of CNN and ABC’s Jim Sciutto.

We chatted up CNBC’s Rick Santelli, in from Chicago, Carl Quintanilla and Hampton Pearson. NBC’s Janet Shamlian, and Kelly O’Donnell and MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan and Contessa Brewer, now almost four months along. Ed Schultz was proud to tell us he’s overtaken Anderson Cooper in the ratings at 10pm, in just his third month on the air. “Big news,” says big Ed.

Meanwhile, over at the Bloomberg/Vanity Fair party, tipsters tell us Jake Tapper, Dave Price, John Dickerson, Chris Isham, Gayle King, and Seth Meyers [who'd poked fun at the thought that the Bloomberg party was a hot ticket], were still in full party mode at 2:15am. “The patio is still packed,” we were emailed. “They started serving breakfast snacks.”