you start this tome at the funeral of tim russert. for those who have not yet read it, and there may be two or three americans, the book is selling so well, but there may be two or three people who have not read it yet, but for those persons, tell us why you start with the funeral of tim russert. >> tim russert struck down in old, and008, 58 years his memorial service at the kennedy center was a state funeral-like event. it was like someone important had died. everyone was there. solemnobviously a big, event. it was on live television. and what i was struck by, and i knew tim well enough to be invited to the service, i was struck about how this immediately degenerated into a cocktail party. throwing business cards around, people trying to get on tv, people as a themselves to be tim's press,"ent on "meet the all at his funeral. i am thinking this is like an epic washington scene that has to be a jumping off what for a book, and as it turned out, i had not thought what the theme of the book would be, but it was a moment that i wanted to

memorial service for tim russert. i almost stopped going to correspondence dinners. i think there were a lot of things he was absolutely right on. but having said that, it was pretty much snark from beginning to the end. i think some places maybe in were true. ste. memorial service for tim russert. i almost stopped going to correspondence dinners. i think there were a lot of things he was absolutely right on. there were individual things i thought were ok, but i didn't enjoy it. i think fundamentally he was right. >> do you think if people read it they are getting a pretty ood picture what goes on here? >> i would hope that anybody that reads it, it's not the only hing they are going to read. >> i don't know if there is anything in the book that isn't true, but something can be true but not the whole truth. he barbecued some people, and some people deserved it, but it was sort of trying to make everybody look bad. and i think some of these people are very well intentioned hard working people and didn't necessarily deserve this. >> here you are at the omni in atlanta

but some of the most legendary figures in this business from the sainted tim russert to sainted mr.have done this so this is how the business works. >> did he disarm you with that? >> i would just say this. according to elsbeth reeve, this is the 21st journalist who has gone to work for the obama administration. i have to say, dana, you're right, given your performance on "hardball" earlier this week there's zero chance the administration ask you to join them. >> i have not had the phone ringing off the hook. >> i guess you were critical? >> i have occasionally been. >> no federal job for you. >>> but there is a long tradition of some people going from journalism into politics or public service as they would prefer to put it. clearly there has been a lot more of it in the obama administration. i think rick stengel was a pretty good editor during his seven years at the helm. but i was interviewing him once and said can't you find a good conservative columnist to go up against joe kline and he said he was still looking. so i wonder if it does -- whether it's something -- does it raise

we're going down to nbc's tim russ erlt russert who is standing by with more information. tim? tim? apparently tim can't hear us. >> obviously people are scrambling to get as much information. i think we do now have tim's audio. >> reporter: i can hear you now. can you hear me? >> please give us your information. >> reporter: i've been speaking to the chairman of the house intelligence committee, porter goss, we're trying to get him on the telephone and continue our conversation on the air. he told me that he was on the phone with house speaker hastert about the situation when a code red was declared on the hill. that the speaker has moved to a secure place because he is in the line of command of our national leadership. the congressman also said that this extremely well coordinated attack could only be done by a very few people very few organizations, and that because of the magnitude of it it will be relatively easy to quote, see their fingerprints. and then we as a nation are going to have to make a very decisive retaliation as soon as we are able to identify exactly who this was