Tim Russert died on Friday. He died while preparing for today's "Meet the Press". He died two days after returning from a family trip to Italy to celebrate his son Luke's graduation from Boston College.

He died "in the saddle," but he died too soon.

Our generation lived through the senseless murders of JFK, MLK and RFK. There is no scale on which to measure which loss is greater, but today I feel Tim Russert's untimely death as a personal loss, as do so many of his admirers.

We looked to Tim Russert for clear reporting on the issues, for cutting through the political morass. We looked for him at the debates, on the network news, on MSNBC and on "Meet the Press" every Sunday morning that we were near a TV set.

He was Boston College's commencement speaker this spring, and when asked that day about Ted Kennedy's just-announced brain tumor, he had no comment.

"Today, I'm just a dad," he replied.