The only person associated with Tim Russert who didn't make a complete ass of him/herself on national television during last week's Orgy O'Grief (aside from Maureen Orth, who even if she'd wanted to appear wouldn't have been able to get a word in edgewise) is Russert's son, Luke, whose very poise and self-assuredness in the face of all the masturbatory hue and cry and rending of garments on the part of his old man's co-workers makes his very existence more of a tribute to and reflection on his father than all the blathering of the nattering classes.

This interview was three freakin' days after he lost his father:



As my mother would say, a NICE boy.

Labels: media, Tim Russert

Death.
Americans seem to be almost psychotically transfixed with the pomp and circumstance surrounding it as we also seemingly have a real need to connect with those who have died, whether we knew them or not. We have to know exactly what happened, lest it happen to us...and worrying that we might have a sudden heart attack while on the way to work, we're probably a million times more likely to get hit by a truck!

Yeah, in the wake of all this, its imperative that Americans lose weight and eat better. Its imperative that people know that the American diet is so fatty that even slim people have fat around their organs inside; its not about how you look on the outside as much as its the fat in and around your actual organs. They say that Tim Russert's huge fight was with pizza and beer and all that ballgame stuff...well, clearly he enjoyed those things and denied that the trade-off for that moment of sheer enjoyment was less time alive. He did seem to be incredibly happy all the time and it may have been a good trade-off for him; only he knows that now, but I doubt his kid would think so. I just wonder about those of us who are making bad choices because we are miserably overworked or lonely at home and using food as something that its not. So regarding this crazy "can this happen to me?" instinct that we have; well, yes, anything can happen, and Tim had been on his exercise bike that morning...in fact this was such a hidden problem that if he had had a stress test that morning it wouldn't have shown anything. But, should we all be aware of eating healthy to live, unless the food thing is giving us a real life experience that is worth any loss of time? Yes! It needs to be a priority, and we need to realize that we deserve the extra time that it takes to take care of ourselves, regardless of what Tim's problems were.

This well rounded guy, who was likely a very competitive workaholic, (you may not get that from the other workaholics at MSNBC,) was well loved, and from what they say, he was willing to debate anything and everything including his deep, "unquestioning," Catholic faith. He loved politics like a kid in a candy store and he had deep abiding relationships with friends and adored his family. To me, the tragedy of such an early death is blunted by a life well lived. So, off you go Timmy...its sad that it has to happen, but if there is a heaven, then it all makes sense now.

Watching the parade of luminaries taking part in the on air Irish wake for Tim Russert on MSNBC, (and all the other stations,) has been sad, gratifying, horrible, and maddening in that there is just so much of it, and you would think that this was the death of someone who actually DID something for the world, rather than added to the news blackout and cronyism of the past 7+ years and beyond! My first horrible thought after the sheer shock of how young he was, was a very unsavory feeling that this may be the only way to dislodge those crony's from their places as "the most important political pundits in the world."

That said, this same luminary parade is worth looking at because it points to what the problem is and has been with the M$M. As difficult as it is to come to terms with in the moment of their grief, and as much as Russert supposedly did for political reporting and NBC, its just sorta rich to watch everyone from the neutered Howard Dean to his closest friends, Al Hunt and Mike Barnacle, talk about the funny and happy moments fishing in Nantucket, and the way that he took over the Washington bureau and Meet the Press, and saved the NBC political news machine, without having the creepy feeling that somehow the old guard is commenting on themselves and how great they are, and that the bottom line in saving that news machine was and is profit rather than truth.

As a very religious man who personally made it a priority to perform charity work and focused on "truth," its hard for me to come to terms with this array of the older set who managed to sit by as the last 7+ years of neocons lied us into a war with no end, and stole this country blind. As the lie has unraveled, most of these pundits have stated that they believed the lies initially, and tried their best to bring out the truth as they came to their senses along with the rest of the country. To me, these sorts of supposedly hard hitting reporters hiding behind such a weak excuse when even I was shouting harder hitting questions at the screens of this administration, is unforgivable. How does a strong religious faith and belief in the truth fit into the amount of time given to neocons and softball questions? How can the buddy, buddy style of super socializing and cronyism that is infused in the structure of things these days, uncover any hard truths at all?
The Sunday shows and how the usual suspect pundits are trotted out to comment on any little political issue, is almmost like performance art when viewed from above...right Tim?

So, today the pile-on continues. If there is a God, she has dislodged a pretty important cog in the wheel of disinformation, but unfortunately, as is evident from the parade of usual suspects, its just gonna fill in, like so may footprints in the tide line of Nantucket, where these guys seem to spend an inordinate amount quality time together reinforcing their shared reality and access.

Y'know, Ive got a 98 year old grandfather who is very sharp mentally and wakes every morning with a certain fix on reality; you cant fight the numbers, as he says. There is something to be said for all the different ways that people go, and maybe its presumptive to critique one or another, but there is something to be said for the quick and clean end. Most of what goes on around death in this country is for the comfort of the living, and we seem to be largely unable to deal with the realities of aging, putting those who flame out young on a pedestal even if they were dysfunctional drug addicts. We respect our old guard as long as they look like themselves when they toddle out to read from a teleprompter, but we don't want to see the messy part; not at all.

I suppose that Tim could have ended up as a veritable McLaughlin in retirement, bungling through a half hour round table like a crazy old uncle, (and I say that fondly because I like the wacky McLaughlin show as the sun room in the old age home,) but then he wouldn't be able to go out at the top of his game, with a dry erase board in his hand and all the crony's parading past.
The only thing that makes me crazy, as someone who is usually acutely aware that anything could happen at any time, is that he shoulda been able to make it through the election...and if there IS a god, then the fact that he was taken out now could be a statement on the state of things.

And if there is nothing out there but ashes for guys like Timmy, then he didn't get to live to see the final ouster of the worst president ever...one who's disinformation campaign he gave a platform to more times than he might have if we weren't living in the atmosphere of spin and fear that was fostered largely thanks to him and these very luminaries... some of whom used to rail against this machine and who are now looking back through Vaseline on the lens . Imagine what things might be like if this one very influential guy had had more courage and less fear himself...imagine it....
RIP Timmeuh....you'll have to sort it out for yourself, wherever you are!

h/t to Trip aka. Vern for this:



c/p RIPCoco

Labels: media, Tim Russert

I'm not going to sit here and tell you how much I thought of Tim Russert as a journalist. That would be hypocritical. I always thought he was far tougher on Democrats than he was on Republicans. I frequently expressed frustration with him, because I thought his "20 years ago you said A and now you said B" game on Meet the Press was partially responsible for the lionization of guys like George W. Bush as "resolute", when what they offered was really just a foolish consistency. That said, there's no denying his importance to television journalism, and there's also no denying that broadcast journalism is far poorer today without him.

But I didn't know the man and I filtered my view of him through my own politics and perceptions. What I'll always remember is THIS interview:



(Part II here)

So it's better left to those who knew the man to share their memories of how Tim Russert enriched their lives, and in this way shall WE know him as well.

(UPDATE: John Cole says what the rest of us don't dare to...and he's right. Skippy too picks up the baton. And they're right. I don't begrudge the folks at NBC pre-empting their programming yesterday for a video wake. Russert was one of their own, and a Very Big Gun in the arsenal of what they do. But enough already. Doing on-air group therapy in the immediate aftermath of a shocking and sudden death is one thing; holding a week-long on-air wake is quite another, I don't care how much you loved Tim Russert as a co-worker. Skippy and John are absolutely right, that this continued rending of garments on national television is a symptom not of the love that these people had for Russert, but of their own egotistical need to be Part Of The Story™. Of course in an odd way, this is quite a fitting tribute to Russert, who was often guilty of the very same kind of egotism.)

Labels: Tim Russert

It snowed in Baghdad yesterday.
In a scene straight out of solemn black and white stories of cease fires at Christmastime, residents of the war torn city marveled at the beauty of the white crystals falling, even if they melted upon hitting the torn apart streets. It hasn't snowed in Baghdad for as long as anyone can remember.

We are living in strange times, my friends.

This past week has been backwards crazy like that; on the heels of Olbermann's O'Reilly puppet theater the other night, in which O'Reilly unsuccessfully messes with Obama security, and then reports of Hannity being chased through NH by Ron Paul supporters, stirred up because Faux News didn't allow Paul to participate in the debate... Along came Dan Abrams complaining that he felt lately that Hillary was being shoved at us by the media! Oh really? The sweet indignation of just realizing what has been happening all along.


....and now Obama is suddenly the second coming!? What was Dan thinking when he was the program director of this very station and he supported the chronically low ratings of Scrappy-doo-Tucky-Carlson, the Libertarian fool, and the non stop rantings of Tweety Matthews, acting as if Hillary was a done deal and there was no point in even discussing other candidates. So sure were the M$M pundits about Hillary, that I started switching it off, because I am just fucking weary of being told what to do by pasty white men.

Yeah, Abrams' outrage rings a little hollow. NOW Dan is with us, in the face of the big bad M$M machine? Well, its possible, I suppose, since MSNBC is maybe the best of the worst of the M$M, but God, who in their right mind allows the likes of Willie Giest to ascend to the role of snide janitor, much less sidekick to the repugnant Morning Joe, and who kept Carlson employed against the usual formula of ratings and sponsors? I wasn't a fly on those walls, but if appearances mean anything, Tucker rode along on his relationships rather than ratings, long after it was clear that any retooling could help him in any way, and once the suits got involved there were slap-downs of Tucker and the "rumors" that Tuckie was on his way out (...also, didn't Tucker thank his 10 viewers on air, and then get reprimanded for it by the bosses?)

Granted, they have got Rachel Maddow on every show in a row, just about every night! (and, having quietly shot a pilot already, maybe she can get Kent Jones a gig there...he is sorely missed on Rachel's AAR show!) One good move doesn't clean the slate, but if they do start to build a decent lineup based around Keith, with Rachel taking the nine o'clock slot, it could be great programming for the upcoming Democratic majority! If New Hampshire is any indication, the snotty conservative pundits who used to have a stranglehold on all of the airtime they wanted, haven fallen from favor, along with their masters in the White House...

After writing the above rant the other day, I was surprised, pleased, and honored to receive an invitation to join Jill's newest project: a blog called Sweet Jesus I Hate Chris Matthews!
Not only was I pleased that she would consider my pitiful missives that are coming pretty irregularly lately, but also I'm kinda thrilled that we are all on the same page about this thing. I spend alot of time wondering if I'm just a crazy fool who was born at the wrong time, in the wrong world, and when I get any sort of confirmation of my sanity and/or remaining humanity around me, I feel so much better! Thats what got me started writing this opinion sort of stuff (and who watches more MSNBC than me??) and thats whats allowed me to go on through the morass of the Bush years and the press playing along like some sort of hired PR team.

And, it wasn't only me and Jill; it was also the entire newscycle, that left old Chris, by last Thursday, saying things like "the popular feeling is that the media...well, me actually..." influenced the outcome of the elections.... So, after years of being a sort of political kingmaker, in servitude to whosoever's stock was going up, and manipulating the American people by playing along with the farce that is his shtick; that no one could have known that any one thing or another was gonna turn out badly in this nightmare called the Bush years; no one could have known? I knew! So many of us knew! How come there were printed bumper stickers, way back then, that said "ATTACK IRAQ? NO!!," (to which has been added a new horrific array of other versions and countries,) right here in my neighborhood?

And regardless if who Tweety Matthews has ever written a speech for or been on staff with, it is an inarguable fact that he, and most of the other M$M pundits were decidedly leaning towards the talking points that were coming out of the White House in their reportage of the news leading up to this fiasco, and ever since. Its not even like any of the press would have had to look far or confirm all that much of the reams of information that was being dumped in their laps, already having been researched and confirmed. The only would have had to put their jobs on the line to report it.

So, when Tweety Matthews and his producers felt it prudent to give the stage to Michelle Malkin, as if she deserved to be on any show further towards the mainstream than the Jerry Springer Show; when they chose to allow old Tweety to literally drool on Ann Coulter, as if this is the kind of woman that anyone (especially a college crowd, which he was entertaining that week,) should aspire to be like some mean trannie with an ax to grind and books to sell, its so far beyond the pale, and begs some programming and social questions at the very least....Unless, of course, MSNBC aspires to be more like Fox News.

The pale? Well, here is a guy who finds all of this politics stuff so fun and interesting, like alot of us do. He rubs his hands together and turns all red, practically jumping up with anticipation of the upcoming primaries and what they could possibly mean. But somewhere along the line, he seems to have disconnected with the reality of what he is doing ,and what it means in the life and death struggles of not only our soldiers around the world, but of the growing number of Americans who are suffering due to the economy and our lack of health care.

So, even with the turn back towards the middle, and the network's seeming attempt to start to show a little deference to what is actually happening in the country, there is still a bit of problem with the ongoing bipolar swings of not only Tweet, but the bunch of them. When you start to wish that all pundits could be as stable as old Pat Buchanan (even if you disagree with him,) you're in trouble. When you start to think from time to time that Morning Joe has a point or two right, you're in big trouble...but across the board, we all think that something is wrong, and getting wronger, with Tweety.

On the heels of this week, came word that Timmeuh Russert is going to give Hillary an entire hour on Sunday; and entire hour! Not only was Timmeuh featured on Hardball to promote this hour, but Tweet went on about how it was going to be the hardest hitting, most important interview in the whole wide world!! And this, as part of the umpteenth time that Tweety was musing on how Hillary should and would concede; bow out of the whole show, gracefully...you know, back off.

It makes me think of how Kos has supposedly been trying to manipulate the republican primaries by having dems vote for Romney...met by such outrage! Such venom!...on both sides....But How are we supposed to view a 1 hour "hard hitting" commercial for Hillary to display her newest self? And how are we supposed to take an entire segment of Timmeuh and Tweet's delight at being able to present her newest self?

Crazymaking; after so many months of beginning every interview with anyone even remotely involved in the election process with a question like "With Hillary as the obvious candidate of choice for the democrats, what do you think of....?" Then planning her fall...now he views this interview as the most historic, interesting, and hard hitting thing to ever happen!
Either he is just trying to go with the flow as he sees it day by day, he is seriously bi-polar and not in control of which way his mania is leading him on any particular day, or this has all been a plan to try to shape the discourse....And, if so, I don't think that its working. Its clear anyway that he is not all that fond of Hillary...or women in general.

The feeling that I'm getting is that in the shadow of being so wrong all the time lately, fearing that his power is slipping as a new generation of more liberal pundits makes their way into his world, and the reality of electing a woman as president looms large, he is very confused about how to act, but is sure that he must keep being the boisterous Chris Matthews that he always was. Whats clear is that something is wrong. Ive watched him almost daily for years, as something that I turn on in the background while I putter in the evening, and something that my entire family watches, and there is something amiss there.

Look for Tweety to pull out some of his personality to match Hillary's new campaign of showing people more of who she is emotionally. I want to start a pool about tears; the tears of Hillary, the tears of Tweet, the tears of all the clowns! (cue: circus music)

c/p RIPCoco
c/p Sweet Jesus I Hate Chris Matthews!

Labels: Chris Matthews, MSNBC, Tim Russert

Paul Waldman:

I have a fantasy that at one of these moments, a candidate will say, "You know what, Tim, I'm not going to answer that question. This is serious business. And you, sir, are a disgrace. You have in front of you a group of accomplished, talented leaders, one of whom will in all likelihood be the next president of the United States. You can ask them whatever you want. And you choose to engage in this ridiculous gotcha game, thinking up inane questions you hope will trick us into saying something controversial or stupid. Your fondest hope is that the answer to your question will destroy someone's campaign. You're not a journalist, you're the worst kind of hack, someone whose efforts not only don't contribute to a better informed electorate, they make everyone dumber. So no, I'm not going to stand here and try to come up with the most politically safe Bible verse to cite. Is that the best you can do?"

Mr. Edwards? I nominate you. Russert hates your guts anyway; what have you got to lose?

Labels: hack journalism, Tim Russert

I hope you all got to see John Edwards on Press the Meat this morning. Tim Russert's absolute, sit-bolt-upright-at-night-screaming terror of a John Edwards nomination was palpable. He was bug-eyed, sweating with fear and practically yelling his questions -- and John Edwards was utterly unflappable.

If you didn't see it, the video is up at the show's site, here. Watch Timmeh have apoplexy as he fails utterly to trip Edwards up.

Labels: hack journalism, John Edwards, Tim Russert