Tim Russert Dies Suddenly From a Heart Attack at 58

You know how you'll occasionally read the name of someone who has died and actually let out a little involuntary gasp? That's what happened to me when I saw that Tim Russert, the indomitable, larger-than-life host of NBC's "Meet the Press" and Washington bureau chief for NBC News, had died from an apparent massive heart attack earlier today while at his office. He was 58 and had just returned from a family vacation to Italy.

This one, for some reason, feels especially shocking, if for no other reason than the sheer suddenness and unfairness of it. Sudden because, well, you just don't expect a man who is so vital and vigorous to simply drop dead, even though it happens every day. Unfair because we're in the middle of one of the most sea-changing Presidential campaigns in recent American annals, and Russert had been such a towering journalistic figure and peerless analyst throughout. Now, as this election hits the homestretch, Russert is taken away. Poof. Just like that. One day he's the most important television news political personality of his generation, the next he's silenced forever.

It sucks.

But in fact, it shouldn't be as surprising as all that. Russert was a big, gregarious bear of a guy, and he clearly carried a lot of weight. That made him a prime target to succumb to heart disease before his time (as age 58 surely is). It's a shattering reminder of the need for all of us to take better care of ourselves. Nobody gets out of this alive, but we can at least improve the odds of extending our time here on Earth somewhat longer. It's a lesson that my very own mother, who turns 87 in 11 days, long ago learned and continues to live each day.

As for Russert, his passing has naturally sent huge shock waves through the NBC News family. The man is, to say the least, irreplaceable, as a shaken Tom Brokaw noted in announcing his longtime colleague's death on the air today. What seperated Russert from the majority of his fellow talking head interviewer/analyst types was his refusal to cowtow to the kind of tabloid bluster and partisanship of too many of those same contemporaries -- such as, to name one, Bill O'Reilly. By contrast, this guy was a class act, smart, tough, fair, always better informed than anyone else.

The hole left at NBC by his passing is gaping. For the rest of us, it's equally vast.