Levees Not War

Photo: Alex Wong/Meet the Press, via Reuters

We were dumbfounded and profoundly saddened to learn yesterday of the sudden and untimely death of Tim Russert, NBC’s Washington Bureau Chief and moderator of “Meet the Press.” The high professional esteem in which he was held by colleagues and public officials was inseparable from their personal affection for this dedicated and friendly journalist. He is praised for his command of the issues and keen analysis, and his nonpartisan, “equal opportunity” thoroughness in questioning guests of all political stripes. While he made his subjects sweat, he also exuded a genuine enthusiasm for politics. But he didn’t just relish the sport: As a child of a working class family (his father used to drive a garbage truck) he had a keen sense of what is at stake in elections, and why it matters whether campaign promises are fulfilled or broken. Among the many regrettable aspects of his too-early death is that he did not live to witness the outcome of the historic 2008 election, but he relished the primaries’ twists and turns and as a debate moderator he helped guide the process and explain it to the viewing public.

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With respects and condolences to the family and many admirers of Sheriff Harry Lee of Jefferson Parish, Louisiana-the second-longest-serving sheriff in the parish’s history and an extraordinary politician even by Louisiana standards. Mr. Lee lost a five-month battle with leukemia on Monday, Oct. 1. He was 75. The son of Chinese immigrants, Lee was born in the back room of his family’s laundry on Carondelet Street in 1932. He was a protégé of the late U.S. congressman Hale Boggs. Regularly outspoken, often controversial, sometimes impolitic, but always reelected (in 1994 his approval rating was 84 percent), Harry Lee served seven terms.

Read the extensive Times-Picayune obituary here and Reuters’s obit here. The New York Times obituary focuses on the many ways he angered his black neighbors in Orleans Parish.