WASHINGTON: In death, Tim Russert did on Wednesday what no living journalist has yet to accomplish this campaign season: he got Barack Obama and John McCain to sit together and talk, quietly.

Specifically, it was Russert's son, Luke, 22, who got the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees together. He requested that they sit next to each other at his father's funeral at Holy Trinity Church in Georgetown. Then, in remarks from the pulpit, he exhorted them and other politicians to "engage in spirited debate but disavow the low tactics that distract Americans from the most import issues facing our country." At the end of the service, the two candidates embraced.

"Five months from now," Luke Russert said a few hours later, "I wanted them to remember that this occasion brought them together."

While that moment occurred at a private gathering, Tim Russert, who died suddenly of a heart attack on Friday, was honored later at a memorial service at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Acts that felt like an enormously special edition of the program he moderated, "Meet the Press."

Televised live on MSNBC beginning at 4 p.m., the 90-minute memorial featured a collection of politicians, journalists and news executives who could not otherwise be found under the same roof. Former President Bill Clinton sat between his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state serving in his successor's administration. Nearby were Madeleine Albright, a secretary of state in the Clinton administration, and former Senator Bob Dole, Bill Clinton's Republican rival in the 1996 presidential race.

Afterward, David Axelrod, Obama's chief campaign strategist, huddled in the lobby of the Kennedy Center with Terry McAuliffe, the chairman of Hillary Clinton's recently concluded race for the Democratic nomination.

Tom Brokaw, the former anchor of "NBC Nightly News," spoke at the memorial service, as Dan Rather, his former rival from CBS, looked on from the audience. Brian Williams, Brokaw's successor, spoke as well, with Charles Gibson of "World News" on ABC and Katie Couric of the "CBS Evening News" also in attendance. They were joined by Barbara Walters, Diane Sawyer and Bob Woodruff of ABC; Chris Wallace of Fox News; and many colleagues of Russert's at NBC, including Chris Matthews, David Gregory, Andrea Mitchell, Lester Holt, Joe Scarborough and Ann Curry. ( Curry and her "Today" co-hosts, Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira, also attended the morning funeral; they had broadcast their program from Washington, instead of New York, so they would be on time.)

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who helped bring down President Richard Nixon with their coverage of the Watergate break-in in The Washington Post, were there, too, as was their editor, Benjamin Bradlee.

Those who spoke at the afternoon service — including Mario Cuomo, the former governor of New York who once employed Russert as his counselor, and the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin — labored at times to tell stories that they and others had not shared previously in the endless loop of cable coverage that followed Russert's death at 58.

But the final appearance was one that was unbilled in the program and known, in advance, to only a few: a special acoustic performance by Bruce Springsteen, a hero to Russert and a friend as well. He was shown via satellite from Germany, where he is on tour, on a large screen that suddenly descended from between the center's shimmering chandeliers.

The song he played was "Thunder Road." It elicited some sobs in the darkened theater, including for the lines, "Climb in back, heaven's waiting on down the tracks."


HERE