In 2001, the longtime political columnist cursed at a pedestrian on the corner of Pennsylvania and 13th St., NW, for allegedly jay walking.

"'Learn to read the signs, [bodily orifice]!' Novak snapped before speeding away," according to an item in the Washington Post’s Reliable Source column.

Or he will run you over, [intercourse enthusiast].

If recent history is any indication, Judy Miller will get jail time for this.

So. We all know the basics of the story. Big fun guy from Buffalo, worked in the New York Democratic party machine for Mario Cuomo and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Made the switch to journalism, got hired by NBC in Washington, and ended up the bureau chief four short years later, in 1988.

In 1991, he took over Meet the Press and quickly became one of the most important names in DC journalism. His journalistic style was a civil, well-read version of the GOTCHA that would take control of cable.

“Lawrence Spivak, who founded ‘Meet the Press,’ told me before he died that the job of the host is to learn as much as you can about your guest’s positions and take the other side,” he said in a 2007 interview with Time magazine. “And to do that in a persistent and civil way. And that’s what I try to do every Sunday.”

This could be an irritating style. Russert's specialty was pointing out a contradiction in a politician's vast record of spoken positions. Oftentimes this meant a descent into entirely useless minutiae. Though almost as often it was enlightening, or at least entertaining. It's certainly preferable to the Chris Matthews method of shouting whatever comes to mind, no matter how crazy. And Russert always knew his shit, even when you were fairly certain he was missing the point.

From Meet the Press he dictated the conventional wisdom of Washington's political establishment—a harder trick to pull off in the days before Drudge, The Note, the internet, Politico, and the rise of what is essentially meta-journalism disguised as political analysis. Russert just selected some insiders—usually white, usually male, every week well into the 2000s (such is DC!)—and allowed them to spin their little hearts out. It's still engaging television, even when it makes you want to level Washington and maybe give Philly a second chance as Capital.

But it was as the country's wonky guide to electoral politics that he perhaps undid some of the damage of the institution of the Sunday chatfest. Because Russert and his whiteboard did an admirable, commendable job, every four years, of explaining our insane and anti-democratic political process to a nation that has always been unclear on the subject. The electoral college, slightly demystified, for one night. Civics lessons are rare on television, and effective ones should be applauded.

And yes, it's actually shocking, and sad, to think that this November all we'll have is John King and his Blade Russert touch screen wall, or Keith Olbermann and his pseudo-gravitas, or poor bored Katie Couric to guide us through that stressful Tuesday night nationwide farce.

Russert died at work, as we said, at NBC's Washington studios. He is survived by his wife, Maureen Orth, his son Luke, and, tragically, his father, the hero of Tim's happily non-self-aggrandizing 2004 memoir, Big Russ and Me.

(Attached: a video montage of some of Tim's notable television moments.)

NBC'S Tim Russert Dead at 58 [MSNBC]

Palfrey, a former receptionist, cocktail waitress, and probable escort herself, began her escort service under the name "Pamela Martin & Associates" in 1993. By 2006 her girls charged $300-per-hour and allegedly counted as clients thousands of important Washington figures.

She was finally busted in 2006 (by the Post Office!), whereupon she began her second career as an inescapable media figure (in DC, at least). She made headlines by threatening to sell her client list to pay for her attorneys—attorneys she kept firing, until finally deciding to defend herself. The presiding judge eventually convinced her to take a court-appointed lawyer as the case went to court this February.

Meanwhile, Palfrey continued insisting she'd done nothing illegal. She was merely offering an "erotic fantasy service." The first high-profile johns Palfrey outed—Deputy Secretary of State Randall Tobias and some think-tank nut—admitted no wrong-doing. Tobias did eventually resign.

And finally she released what is probably the biggest name on her list—Senator David Vitter. Vitter, who's even been linked to other whores, did not resign.

She didn't sell the list. She did hand it over to ABC, but they apparently found nothing on it newsworthy enough to share.

As her trial for money laundering and racketeering drew closer, Palfrey found herself settling into a comfortable role as a media talking head—DC's own unrepentant Heidi Fleiss, happy to opine on the whoring of great men in case tomorrow's column was looking a little dry.

Faced with the convictions on all charges, though, and possible jail time, well—who the hell knows what was really going on. You never do.

Now we await the conspiracy theorists who'll swear she was killed by the government before she could reveal that Dick Cheney was a client, or something.

I was an intern for Charlie Rose back in '03, and at that time David Gregory was a frequent guest, usually on remote from Washington. I would watch the less-than-congenial, highly abusive, and generally abrasive Rose do the usual pre-show banter with Gregory; whereby they'd both bask in their own sense of self-satisfaction for a while, then make jokes about President Bush (not that everyone doesn't, but it did destroy the illusion of journalistic objectivity for me).

My best guess is Gregory is definitely taking 'star' lessons from the diva/mentor himself, Charlie.

The dude is a total jerk.

Once, I was hanging with some friends in DC and we decided to go to the Capitol. We agreed to meet at a certain point at the front steps when we were done. There were maybe 8 of us. Well it turns out that David Gregory was reporting from the lawn of the Capitol around the spot where we were meeting up. The guy did his report, turned around, and proceeded to berate us and curse at us for being fame seeking assholes for ruining his shot and then asked if we wanted his autograph.

Whiner, arrogant, pious, self centered puke - that's him!!

And Fitted Sweats asks the important question: what if you were stranded on a tropical island with him?

David Gregory would insist being stranded was all your fault in the first place. He'd make a weird headband from an old dress shirt. Go jogging. Then start asking about what Presidents you've met. "Come on," he'd say. "Has to be at least one, right?" You'd say no. Meekly. Then he'd say "What was your GPA in college?" And spend the whole time undermining you. And being his typically douchey prematurely gray self. If he dies, after writing some bad poetry on a cave wall with a rock, he's too pasty to cannibalize.

Not the awkward disaster of Stephen Colbert's too-mean performance nor the intriguingly terrible anachronistic trainwreck of Rich Little's live death of last year. Ferguson's not a political comedian, or an attempted satirist, and he didn't do a political routine. He did, in a little reversal, spend most of his routine bashing the newsmedia. They eat that shit up.

Ferguson first mocked employees of the beleaguered LA Times, but he reserved his most stringent material for the New York Times, who this year decided, a number of years too late, that the schmoozy dinner looks a little improper to folks not in tune with the friendly DC scene, in which the media and the government largely consider themselves to be equals in importance and power. So the Times didn't buy a table. And Ferguson told them all to go to hell. And the crowd applauded.

(You can watch the entire dinner here if you're a masochist or just incredibly bored.)

While the Post works out of historic downtown DC, washingtonpost.com is out in the suburbs of union-unfriendly Virginia (no Guild fights out here!), a 15 minute drive in fantastic traffic. Also newspaper and web counterparts at various analogous positions hate each other, certain sections of the paper are buried in the website in favor of promotion of washingtonpost.com-employed substitutes, and the many old people of the paper have no clue what to do about nasty anonymous comments. Its the problems of every newspaper website magnified tenfold, and played out in the relative public of meta-media criticism.

From our time in DC, we're well aware of tensions between the paper and the web. The whole enterprise is astoundingly wasteful, unfair to web-only reporters who don't get real bylines in the paper and print people whose work is hidden on the site beneath web-exclusive content. But the Post has ended up as a web-friendly publication, beating the Times to the blog revolution and often quite effectively engaging in online political conversation, all while the stodgy paper itself loses ad revenue, circulation, and income.

(And concurrent to trend-ish anecdotes like the web's burying of sections like Style has been the Post's inexcusable dumbing down of that once-respected section into typical USA Today lifestyle bullshit, though maybe that's neither here nor there.)

(Also neither here nor there: City Paper editor Erik Wemple is known, fairly or not, for hating blogs, bloggers, and the internet as a whole.)

(The City Paper story also features a sped-up video of editor Wemple pretending to be a Post employee driving from the paper's office to the web office. With acting and everything! It's like Grand Theft Auto: Vendetta-Based Media Crit.)

One Mission, Two Newsrooms [City Paper]

Newsmax's Ronald Kressler summarizes a few more important distinctions:

• In New York, people throw parties for reasons! "Events in New York are often organized to promote a movie or a product like Donald Trump's vodka."
• Washington is small! "In Washington, you see the same people."
• New York is big but you still see the same people! "Donald Trump was omnipresent."

So much catching up to do. I haven't had even a sip of Trump vodka!

ALSO in New York you're much less likely to cap off a career in "legitimate" journalism by writing for something like Newsmax, which is basically the website version of those insane anti-Hillary chain emails your aunt forwards you.

Instead, you end up at Portfolio. Which, from what I understand (I'm new!), is like the fancy, glossy version of those pictures of dogs dressed in Halloween costumes that your mom forwards you?

Lloyd Grove and New York's Culture of Swag [Newsmax]

When the cover band took a break at Swine on the Vine, guests crowded around the beer bong, eager to take their turn guzzling a can of beer poured down a funnel. A young man shook a portable outhouse because he knew his buddy was inside.

The New York Times piece is filled with all sorts of quotable goodness. The club's former president lists "throw down a few shots of Patr n" and "perhaps enjoy the fruits of some of our lady guests," among the group's objectives, while our favorite Washington hussy Jessica Cutler's assessment of the D.C. night life is pretty spot on.

The article ends with a scene that would not be out of place on a Thursday night in any college town in America.

At the end of the night, 10 empty kegs were lined up as people danced to the last song, Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'." A young man stumbled out of the darkness while rebuttoning his untucked white shirt. Guests left in pairs, holding hands, while some single women consoled each other. "He's a dirtbag," one said.

At Play in the Realm of Political Animals [NYT]