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Picking on the dead guy: Tim Russert
by Madeline Zane, Unknown News June 16, 2008
I know this is insensitive and crass, but before we all rush to canonize Tim Russert as a modern-
day media saint, am I allowed to point out that during the months leading up to the war in Iraq he
presided over the worst failure of journalism in American history?
It's hard to imagine how someone could retain a reputation for being good at their job, when their complete failure to do their job enabled not only an illegal war in Iraq, but also systematic torture, a foreign policy that has made every American less safe, the destruction of the U.S. economy, and the attempted cancellation of our Constitution.
The biggest hit parade of Bush administration lies -- Cheney's claim that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met an Iraq official in Prague, Rice's claim that the smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud -- all happened across the desk from Tim Russert on Meet the Press. Those lies were that much more dangerous because they were broadcast, without being questioned, on a show with an inexplicable reputation for hard-headed journalism.
In fact, during the Scooter Libby trial, Cheney's former communications director testified that Meet the Press was their best forum for giving interviews because they were allowed to control their own message without being questioned.
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And Russert's right-wing bias isn't limited to these past mistakes. In just the last couple months, he has:| |
• complained on MSNBC about viewers who were demanding some critical news coverage of John McCain, and told Don Imus that the media were giving McCain a "grace period" where they wouldn't cover his lies, mistakes, and corruption.
• smeared Barack Obama during a debate by reading some outrageous statements by Louis Farrakhan out loud to Obama, even after Obama interrupted him to renounce Farrakhan.
• forced MSNBC's Keith Olbermann to cancel an interview with Arianna Huffington about her new book. |
I'm not glad that the man is dead or anything, and by all accounts he was been a decent person in many ways. But sentimentality is no excuse for rewriting history, and eulogizing Russert as a tough and serious journalist just isn't borne out by his history.
© by the author.
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