To ‘Hulk2008,’ and anyone one interested in the larger question. I don’t want to
belabor the point but Hulk2008’s comment raises a key issue.

Hulk, permit the shorthand please. Your comment at face value appears more
than credible. And I don’t doubt you believe it. Anyone watching that ‘cherubic’
face break into ‘the’ grin and utter the immortal words, relatively speaking, “go
Bills,” could not help but be impressed.

Here’s the problem Hulk, apparently you have no basis upon which to compare
aspects of Russert’s life, various statements, his work etc.. Honestly, look at
‘godistwaddle’s’ comments. Look at mine earlier. Do you think we’re making
this up?

Did you ever take the time to look at his work in context and then evaluate it?
Did you ever give thought to his comments, here paraphrased, like ‘being
educated by the Jesuits was interesting, they taught you how to argue from any
point of view you choose?’ Canisius H.S. circa 1960’s.

Consider that, among other things, in light of his and so many other Catholic
defenders over the pedopohile issues.

Look at Russert’s career. Every move up the career/status/social climbing
ladder followed his last move to an ever more conservative milieu.

The point of this is not to heap stuff on your head nor anyone else’s. The point
is to ask what basis do people have these days for their strongly held views and
are they/we/whomever willing to continually reflect and assess/reassess?

Welcome to the General Electric Museum of Fascist
Propaganda .Here is a complimentary brochure
that explains how the magic of television keeps you in a state of ignorant bliss and eternal patriotism.

i agree…. enuf with this guy.

Tim Russert wore a George W. Bush pin under his lapel during the debate he moderated between Bush and Gore, which he flashed to Bush when initially greeting the candidates (before cameras were rolling).

I’ll gladly speak ill of the dead, when they did as much damage to the nation I love as has Tim Russert.  Russert was not a journalist, and lacked the basic ethics of the profession he pretended to be a part of.

For a long time I wished someone would have exposed him for the
mythologist, fabricator, periodic liar he was.

It was appalling for me to read his first book about his father, “Big Russ ....”
Unlike Russert I actually grew up in South Buffalo, the first 20 years of my life.
10 years older than he I did not know him nor his family. However, I knew 2
people in the book well, knew the area,  many of the family names, lived a little
over a mile from him, etc..

Only wish people knew that when his father moved the family to West Seneca,
that couple mile move was the difference between night and day. Been
interesting to see what would have become of Timmie had he gone to Holy
Family, rather than the West Seneca school.

But then, thinking about Chris Hedges new book the “Empire of Illusion”
Russert’s life and work fit almost perfectly.

One last thought, once on a TV program he was bemoaning the Democratic
party for some purported ‘liberal’ economic effort with which he disagreed and
asserted that’s how they ‘lost’ his father. I never knew his father but I knew
dozens of men just like him, in spades, pretty much every way possible
including working 2 jobs.

Forget the ‘humble’ anecdote about his father respecting the black man who
worked on the truck with him. When push came to shove, these men were
purely and simply racists and sexists of the first order. Including I’m sad to say
members of my own family a fact I would not recognize for what it was until I
grew up and left home.

So let’s not be surprised after that absurd orgy of self-indulgence and ‘proto-
sanctification’ on the TV the weekend after he died. Sadly today this country
cannot function any longer in the real world. Like oxygen, it can’t survive
without the illusions constantly foisted upon us.