Now that the new ties have been folded and put away, the cards are taped to the wall for the next few weeks and the last "Happy Father's Day" has been spoken, we are left with a couple of extraordinarily important images from Father's Day 2008.

Interestingly enough, they come from two fathers whose public lives were remarkably intertwined over the past year. It was NBC's Tim Russert who first publicly elicited from Democrat Barack Obama that the first-term senator might be planning to run for president in 2008.

But Russert made his mark on this culture in more than just politics and media. His book about his own father, Big Russ and Me: Father and Son: Lessons of Life, defined fatherhood for one generation. His follow-up book, Wisdom of Our Fathers, extended the stories of fatherhood to a wide spectrum of folks. And the tributes to Russet following his sudden death last Friday morning invariably mentioned his incredibly close bond with his son, Luke.

While Russert's images of fatherhood were warm and inspiring, Obama offered a much tougher view on Sunday speaking at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago.  He recalled his own abandonment by his father at a young age, his own struggles trying to be a good father to his two daughters in the midst of running for president. And he called on men who help conceive children to be there for them as they grow up.

"We need families to raise our children," he said on Sunday. "We need fathers to recognize that responsibility doesn't just end at conception. That doesn't just make you a father. What makes you a man is not the ability to have a child. Any fool can have a child. That doesn't make you a father. It's the courage to raise a child that makes you a father."

White folks are given to criticizing black folks for never taking on the problems in their own communities. What Obama said on Sunday is hardly a new theme within the black community, even if whites haven't noticed it so much in the past. His prominence, though, gave it an extra impact.

The problem of absent or distant fathers is not limited to African-American families or families living in poverty. There is no shortage of white, middle-class families where father's love and care is needed far more than it is felt now.

So the questions raised by Russert and Obama linger for all families? What do we expect of fathers? How can we help them meet those expectations? And how do we reconnect fathers to families? Please add your ideas to the discussion.