Reports are surfacing that Tim Russert, Washington Bureau chief of NBC News and host of NBC’s Meet the Press, has passed away from an apparent heart attack at only 58 years old. According to the NY Post, he collapsed from a heart attack at NBC’s Washington News Bureau.
Russert seemed like one of the best guys in the news business: Not only an incredible journalist, but a guy with a great sense of humor. And dare I admit that I’ve always harbored a tiny crush on The Russert, thanks in large part to his hilarious interviews on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. You can see one of these priceless interviews here. The man was a genius. On any given episode of Meet The Press, Russert managed to bring down various politicians with ease and grace. He will be missed.
Following yesterday’s post, what’s turning out to be THE question of the week around here is whether TV talking head Tim Russert passed gas on MSNBC in the midst of some boring point he was making about his show Meet The Press, or if the unmistakable fart-like sound could actually have been caused by some sort of animal-like grunt of ecstasy made by one of his fellow panelists off-screen. We’ve played and re-played the clip, Zapruder-style, for two days now and our expert sound people have determined that’s it is our official position that Russert indeed ripped a fart on television. Besides, it’s what we want to believe in our hearts. Re-watch the clip and make your own opinion known in the poll below (right now “Yes it was a fart” is running neck-and-neck with “I’m not sure if it was a fart, but it was funny”). Also, Digg the original so America’s voices can be heard about this vital matter!
Sorry to be such 5 year-olds here, but yesterday during Race for the White House With David Gregory on MSNBC, Tim Russert farted, rather loudly, on the air. We re-winded the moment about 25 times to make sure we weren’t hallucinating, and sure enough, the fart – which occurs about 14 seconds into the clip – was both real and magnificent. See for yourselves, and spend the rest of the afternoon making “windbag” jokes in the comments. (Even though Russert’s fart was so awesome it sounds like a special effect of some sort, this audio in this clip was in no way edited or altered from what aired on TV. We can’t stress this enough.)
(Thanks to our own Christian Finnegan for the tip!)
UPDATE: There has been some comment controversy over whether the noise we heard was actually a fart or not. Help us settle the Broken Windgate scandal by taking our poll after the jump!
At the risk of stating the obvious, I’ve always thought that Tim Russert’s political gabfest Meet the Press was created exclusively For Idiots, By Idiots (FIBI clothing line, anyone?), but this hysterical send-up from Conan O’Brien shows us that things could indeed be much, much worse. (Via Lindsayism)
Reports are surfacing that Tim Russert, Washington Bureau chief of NBC News and host of NBC’s Meet the Press, has passed away from an apparent heart attack at only 58 years old. According to the NY Post, he collapsed from a heart attack at NBC’s Washington News Bureau. 
