Russert’s approach to Dick Cheney, the lying son-of-a-bitch who dragged this country into an illegal and immoral war, was polite deference.

Russert’s approach to Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, the only truly anti-war candidates, was to quiz them endlessly about 9-11 conspiracy theories, Civil War Revisionist history, and UFO’s!!!!

What a disgusting creep this shill was! May he roast in hell!

I was about to link the same article, but you beat me to it!

Tim Russert was a shameless shill for the establishment. He let Dick Cheney spout his lies on his program, WITH NO CHALLENGE WHATSOEVER!!!! This, despite the fact there were plenty of sources he could have used to combat this lying scoundrel of a Vice President.

His shameless shilling explains why both “left” and “right” establishments are bending over backwards to praise him. Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and the Nation all agree that this court stenographer was some sort of “journalist.” Excuse me while I puke.

(Sorry to speak with disrespect towards the dead, but the situation demands it, since this sorry shill is being used to back up the official, establishment line. If you are going to use the dead to prop up your sorry, illegal war, then it’s open season, folks.)

re:By omniadeo, June 18 at 2:29 pm:

Yeah, omni. I’m not a rightist or libertarian either. But the libertarian antiwar.com is by far the best site dealing with all matters of war and peace, and they do publish and link to a lot of liberal/left antiwar stuff as well. This piece is the best analysis I’ve seen of Russert’s shameful role in helping Bush and Cheney lie us into war (though it draws much from Bill Moyers’s earlier work).

It truly galls me to find so many “media figures” fawn over ridiculous and even pathetic power brokers that have done nothing but lower the value of humanity worldwide.

The passing of William Rehnquist, Jerry Falwell, Richard Nixon, and the like caused little sympathetic reactions in my mind.  These figures have caused such mountains of inhuman acts in their lives that the inevitability of death is sometimes almost a consolation that even such practitioners of hate and vice would finally meets their ends.

There are those, in addition, whose very presence among the living is such a blight upon anything we value as human beings, that their eventual, nature-ordained end might even be causes of celebration.  The WH squatter, Antonin Scalia, the malevolent Dick, Henry Kissinger, Auguste Pinochet, Pol Pot- these fit into such a category.

However, in terms of humanity, what galls me often is to find otherwise highly regarded (via instruments of money, or some technological prowess, or some measure of human “success”) individuals display a degree of crass mediocrity (and this may be only a charitable description) in their choice of intellectual or other pursuits.  As an immediate example, I might cite a short bio I was reading earlier today of Intel Co-Founder Gordon Moore in the IEEE Spectrum.  While all other accolades flowed well, and perhaps even deservingly so- I was rather underwhelmed to find that he mentioned his most current reading to be some book by Tom Brokaw.

Tom Brokaw belongs among the group of craven media figures in this country, whose heartless pandering to some imaginary greatness, and inability to see the abject obscenity of war and violence visited upon the innocent (while simply glorifying this “U.S.A.” brand name to opiated non-thinkers that proliferate in our world)- has relegated him, along with so many others, to a very low (if not negative) rung of the human hierarchy.  The likes of Wolf Blitzer, Judy Woodruff, and virtually every MSM figure to me fit into this lowly rung.  Yet, to find a renowned technical figure, with billions of dollars, and untold capacity to influence- regard Tom Brokaw as reading material- is somehow very disheartening to me.

Tim Russert belonged to this latter category of so-called “journalists”.  It has been a truly shameful experience to watch or hear about the media-figures (radio, TV, newspaper- you name it) in the past 15 or 20 years.  Many like myself have completely rejected these propaganda tools (in my own case, I cannot switch channels fast enough when it comes to surfing past CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, HN, CNBC, MSNBC- and so on and on.  Even the scant few individual shows I might occasionally watch, these I gather from the internet (such as Keith Olbermann, or Bill Maher, or Jon Stewart).

Otherwise, for me it has been a complete boycott of these big-business propaganda shows that think nothing of preaching hatred and violent acts such as war and mass-murder- while touting some bizarre heroism and patriotism that should make angels shudder.

As many have said, mourning for Tim Russert would be deeply unfair to the hundreds of thousands butchered by U.S. terror, and the immoral acts of this rogue government- so much of which were directly pandered to, or even enabled by the likes of Russert, Judith Miller, and other such death dealers.  I am aghast to be told that Russert had D-party affiliations.  If true, it only establishes further the indistinguishability of the D- and R-parties in this country, especially when it comes to racism and xenophobia.  The murderous profiteering and soulless self-aggrandizement of capitalism, as it has been exposed by the current criminal regime, is deeply sickening and even mind-boggling.

Thanks you, Ed Harges, for linking the Justin Raimondo article. I am neither a right-winger nor a libertarian, but I cannot help but point out that the “progressive” publications and websites online have generally played Russert’s death as a loss for the forces of truth on the networks. The Nation, TruthDig etc, they all seem to believe that Russert’s “bulldog” pose was for real.

This is another example of how when it comes to gathering information the false left-right dichotomy is breaking down in America.

The naivete of the US progressives makes me cry. (Or is it their cynicism?)

re: By Thomas Mc, June 17 at 5:51 am:

Indeed you’re correct, Thomas. Russert was major enabler for the Iraq war — and he was busy helping the neocons to drum up a war against Iran when he died.

Here is an excellent article that sums up, with lots of specifics, the damning case against Tim Russert as a willing servant of the neoconservative warmongers:

‘As Bill Moyers pointed out in Buying the War, his trenchant PBS documentary on how the War Party successfully sold us on the invasion of Iraq, Russert’s show was a favored venue for the administration to publicize stories they had planted in the media. Administration officials would get booked on Meet the Press and point to their phony reports as “proof” of Saddam’s WMDs.’

http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13006

when peter jennings died, i cried. when russert died i laughed my ass off. one more right wing piece of shit, bites the dust. he may have been as sweet as one of ray-guns jelly beans,but he had no more substance than a jelly bean. it would be nice if brian williams,charlie gibson,the bubble headed bleach blond couric, would all follow in his footsteps. like maybe tomorrow.

The first poster’s comment is a bit depressing. I went and read that interview and it seemed soft as a baby duck.Russert had a way of bearing down intensely on and then letting hs interviewee slip away without follow up. For instance when Bush was asked whether he would testify to the 911 commission he answered ” perhaps.” Russert might have asked, “why would you not?” Or “will it be under oath?” There are many such examples. The whole thing is a show. Net neutrality forever!

michelle fuller:  “Be More Forceful”, Mr Robinson.  You are missing the point - if he were more forceful he wouldn’t be invited to appear on the show.  A great deal of self censorship goes into his appearences with the talking heads.  Predictable dullness is what is called for.

Breaking into an interview from 2002:
Russert pounded the table. “Integrity is for paupers!”

When Tim Russert joined NBC News in 1984, he began a personal transformation from Democratic congressional aide to broadcaster-in-charge of General Electric’s political interests. His early efforts for the network drew some criticism from the GE corporate suites as being “too knee jerk”, a euphemism for “insufficiently pro-GE/ Republican”. The executives at General Electric viewed with hostility the Democratic Party that wanted to burden them with obeying laws that the company preferred to break and complying with regulations that it preferred to ignore. While Republicans turned a blind eye to the serial environmental crimes and bribery committed by GE, the Democrats were less submissive. The company was especially upset that the Democratic Party had taken a position against transferring public ownership of the broadcast airwaves to the media conglomerates.

The ambitious Russert soon learned that, in order to climb the ladder at NBC News, he had to please two sets of managers: the news executives who were ostensibly his bosses, and the employers of the news executives. In the years that followed, he refined the strategy to ingratiating himself to General Electric Chairman Jack Welch.

For much of the eighties, Russert coordinated specials on summits and foreign policy related topics. His breakthrough performance occurred in 1990, when he oversaw the production of the prime time special, “A Day In The Life Of President Bush”. The show was so worshipful and fawning that one embarrassed production assistant referred to it as “Deep Throat: The Missing Footage”. By this time, however, Russert had figured out that only one opinion counted. Jack Welch loved the program, telling an associate that it “hit just the right note”.

Tim Russert was bought by GE, and NBC.  He willingly put the collar around his neck and was the Repulsicans’ attack dog whenever a Democrat came on the show.  His shaming of David Duke was just a bully stepping on a has-been.  His fawning over Cheney, the war criminal and Bush, the mass murderer, is what makes this hoo-raw about him nauseating.

In questioning Bush and other political leaders Russert may have asked a tough one now and then but the important thing is that he never questioned the right of the US to act unilaterally when ever and where ever it wished to in order to protect corporate interests.  He could ask Bush what his rationale was for attacking Iraq in light of the fact that no weapons of mass destruction were found, but he could not ask whether the US ever had a right to attack Iraq to begin with.  So much for his search for truth.

It seems media spent so much time leaving Russert to be the bearer of frank discussions to eleviate themselves of their own responsiblities.
some time invisible forces have a larger effect then those in the realm of the mandane. Maybe his memeory will be a greater inspiration them he was in life- a Higher Calling which has been sorely lacking in recent decades.
MLK’s message got louder and more credence once he was gone- perhaps Tim’s message will resonnate louder in the ears of those who should have joined him in his quest for Truth now that he is no longer able to forge the battle.
Maybe such journalist integrity will be demanded since that voice has now gone silent.
The Shoes are Always Bigger once they have been vacant. Good Luck those in media - he set a standard we will be watching and yearning to be filled.The bar is High, those who have already failed the test will be pushed out,those who have shown potential will be elevated.
You don’t know what you got until you lose it!
And He wa a priceless Gem.
Good Bye Propagandaist and Fame Seekers we have grown tired of you anyway, and are now beginning to grow annoyed.

Russert did some pretty mean things also, like the question about UFO’s to Kucinich at one of the early debates thereby puting a tinfoil hat on him.

worth reading is russert’s interview with george w bush in february 2004. russert went after bush relentlessly, and some of the most quoted bush lines/lies come from that interview. russert nailed him.