The three day, non-stop memorial honoring the sudden passing of Tim Russert, pieced together from archive footage and impromptu eulogies from all the many famous faces who worked with Russert over the years, is completely unjustified and unwarranted. It blacked out all other news, as if the flood waters in Iowa had suddenly receded, not one soldier was mortally wounded or dismembered in Iraq or Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia wasn't inching forward to collecting $150 per barrel this coming July 4th.But ever since Tom Brokaw, as a former news anchor for NBC and close friend of Tim Russert, broke the tragic news on Friday of Russert's collapse at work, it seemed all three major cable news outlets, MSNBC, CNN and even FOX News had nothing else to report but to gush out a tsunami of grief and sadness upon their audience.
Naturally because Russert's demise came about so suddenly, so unexpectedly, his weeping, self-indulgent colleagues are understandably trying to cope on air with the loss of a good friend and mentor. But what is not authorized is why Russert deserves the same kind of grand gesture of a send-off befitting the statue of a president?
What did he achieve in his long career to deserve that kind of outpouring of gratitude for having lived? Did Tim Russert's interviews single handily save this country from the awful tyranny of the Bush-Cheney Administration? Where was Russert an exceptionally transcendent leader of journalism? Where in eight long years of being held hostage to a out of control regime did Russert make a profound difference.
Aside from having a spirited ability to recall dates and facts to overlap historical events, at times he appeared to be a willing partner in aiding and abetting the current administration's diabolical scheming by never wanting to step over that fine line of making a guest angry enough to dissuade them from coming back on his show ever again. But why would that have been such a bad thing? What would have been the loss? Their absence would have spoken at a much higher volume than to have to watch them squirm out of impeachment hearings by pretending gross and malicious falsehoods.
If Russert hadn't let the current administration get away with such lies and deceit it would have made for a much more compelling argument that he was our last journalism shining hope and every citizen would have remembered him for not allowing the agents of death to pilfer and ravage anymore. Then he might have gone down with the likes of Edward R Murrow, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Woodward and Bernstein, and the still great Bob Shieffer, a Washington reporter who took over for Dan Rather as anchor of The CBS Evening News. None of those men smiled when they knew they were staring into the eyes of moral corruption. In other words, when Donald Rumsfeld looked Russert directly in the eye to let him know he was mad as hell and wasn't going to answer such an impertinent question, Russert would immediately back off, withdraw the impolite, discourteous inquiry and with a big, cheery red nosed smile, come back with a lesser offense his guest could easily skirt around. There, isn't that better Mr. Mass Murderer? Let me get you a glass of warm milk to go with that soft pandering. The bottom line was Russert's prosecutorial enquiry against the thugs and rapists that run this country wasn't anymore productive than pansy Larry King.
Furthermore, under Russert's style of programming there was often no mistaking his ideological bias. Whatever happened to the expected journalist neutral stance? Who was overseeing the strict code of ethics that legitimizes journalistic standards when Russert outright yelled for Hillary to get off the stage already? Why was he allowed to be so heated against Hillary? If he had uttered an obscenity at her surely the FCC would have whipped his butt. But there was no accountability held when he overtly overstepped his journalist integrity in opposition towards her? Over the last weeks if you had been watching Meet The Press it was hard to miss the tipping point when he suddenly took over as Obama's campaign manager and gave up his position as the host of his own network news show.
Media Matters.org as well as the prestigious CJR.org (the Columbia Journalism Review) cites Meet The Press episodes that spotlight Russert's prejudiced tendencies. There you will find entire word for word read outs of statements made by both Bill and Hillary Clinton that were taken out of context to act as prompt aides for Russert's interviews. And why didn't anyone at least raise an eyebrow when right after the historic November 2006 midterm election upset, when the Dems won a major victory by gaining back control of congress for the first time in twelve years, when they took away six senate seats from Republican incumbents to win a one-seat majority in the upper house, and did not lose a single seat in either chamber, the first election in U.S. history in which any party kept all of its congressional seats, and Russert only invited three Republican players, Senator McCain being one of them, to appear on his show? What happened there? Did every Democrat up and leave the country for a big congratulate pep rally?
Still, apart from Russert's dubious journalistic intentions, it's curious as to why his colleagues were so unfathomably shocked at their captain's sudden passing, when they themselves run reports every other day on what to do to prevent heart attacks. They were all well aware that the man they adored and loved had an enlarged heart, yet stood by and apparently did nothing while he continued to eat enough of the wrong foods to gain an enormous amount of weight in recent years. Russert was a grown man and a highly intelligent one. He must have known he was committing suicide. Where is the surprise in his collapse? It was only a matter of time. Heart disease is a killer.
NBC's Andrea Mitchell repeated ad nauseum this weekend how much her beloved colleague and mentor loved his country. If he loved this country more than he loved his food - maybe he would still be here and the Bush-Cheney team would not.
3 comments:
How despicable to speak of a man so suddenly taken from us as if he were some useless heathen. You may not condone the plethora of attention being paid to the loss nor understand the grandiosity of his effect on the journalism world but to label it unjustified and unwarranted is a little rash. Rash fine, but to actually think (much less make public your opinion) that if he paid less attention to food he might still be around is absolutely awful and disappointing. As a fellow journalist and writer here is a word to the wise: keep your opinions bold and take it to the edge but don't jump over it and offend people. Tim Russert was a historical figure in the journalism world and lived vibrantly in the living rooms of so many people and families. He needs no justification for his "non-stop memorial honoring" and maybe if the media stopped more often to highlight the individuals that advocate positive change and are making a difference instead of the death toll in Iraq and the economic plunge we are barreling down, more people would be affected by politics instead of complacent.
If you had such a problem with the attention for Tim Russert passing, then all you had to do is turn the channel. CNN barely mentioned it and I have no idea how you can complain about MSNBC making a big issue out of the sudden demise of one their top people.
Get over it.
I have to admit, your article was a over the top. I watch MTP every Sunday for the last year, and I can say that he challenged everyone that came on the show. There were no free rides. Also you argue that he was showing bias towards Obama and against Clinton, and then argue that he was promoting one party over the other after the mid-term elections of 2006? Well, I have to say that seems pretty unbiased to me. Perhaps he wanted to get the reaction and comments from the party that had just been served their lunch. That's where the story was, not in backslapping the winners. Finally to professionally disagree with his journalism, is one thing, but to attack him personally about his weight and health problems, and equate that to the reason Cheney and Bush are still in office, is not only heartless, cruel, and rude, but ridiculous.
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