So he was as responsible as anyone
for the press collusion with the
Administration.
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn06212008.html
CounterPunch Diary
The Russert Send-Off
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
In the old days,
when a journalist met his final deadline,
friends would gather round the grave,
toss in a few memories,
then make off to the bar for liquid
comfort and disrespectful stories
about the dear departed.
Contrast this with the
send-off for Tim Russert,
NBC's Wa****ngton Bureau
Chief and 17-year maestro of
"Meet the Press",
who dropped dead of a heart attack last week.
He got funeral ceremonies a pope
and most U.S. presidents would envy:
a private funeral with this
year's two presidential nominees
sitting side by side on Russert
family orders,
with the Congressional
leader****p in the neighboring pews;
George and Laura Bush at the public wake;
thousands at the memorial in the Kennedy Center,
with Wa****ngton and New York's media and
political elites massed in respectful homage.
Was Russert so extraordinary a fellow,
to elicit so tumultuous a farewell?
Surely not.
He could be a sharp interviewer,
but I can't remember any occasions
when I said to myself,
" Russert has given me a whole new
insight into the way the world works."
There are many journalists and
broadcasters I would put miles
ahead of him.
Russert was a protege of Moynihan
and a very close personal friend--
many have said they were like father and son.
Carl Ginsberg,
who's done excellent work
on Moynihan down the years,
sent me the following
note on this relation****p.
"A few years ago, in the course of promoting his book,
Russert said that he -- Russert --
always made a point of getting
home for dinner when in town
to be with his son, Luke.
The point was that even a
busy and powerful dad can -
and should - be attentive to his child.
This was part of the Moynihan-tainted
dogma about family Russert recycled
for years:
if poor blacks just made more
of an effort with their families
they could set their lives straight,
help the kids and join respectable society.
Moynihan once told me regarding black conditions,
'it's beyond economics... we can't help them.'
It's interesting that no matter
how many sub-prime mortgages were
sold through financial sleight of
hand, packaged and resold
(at a re****ted profit of
40per cent every two months
at its height)
and how many somersaults Moody's
did to give those mortgages --
dubbed "collateralized debt obligations"--
AAA rating (the rating agency 20 per
cent owned by Oracle of Omaha Warren Buffett,
who today is sitting on $35 billion in cash)...
and no matter the simple fact
that the reason that poor people
stretched for those mortgages
was in desperation to get
out of the clutches of
miserable landlords...
no matter what,
the purveyors of capital never
seem to be characterized as being
"irresponsibility";
nor are their families ever
scrutinized for their behavior.
But Moynihan -- and Russert --
couldn't stop pointing the
finger at irresponsible blacks."
Russert was an insider,
with a useful line in presenting
himself somewhat to be an ordinary
Joe from Buffalo
(his hometown,
where the flags have been
flying at half mast).
He didn't have enemies,
(which for a journalist is
not an impressive credential).
So this nice,
popular insider was a fine
advertisement for two professions -
journalism and politics --
whose collective ranking
in public esteem is down
there with salesfolk for
subprime mortgages.
No wonder they made haste to
offer Russert to the people as the
hero-journalist In hailing Russert,
they got to hail and to ennoble themselves.
I was in Virginia the weekend after
he died and the lead editorial in a
local paper had this to say:
"Tim Russert was the kind of
newsman to which every journalist
aspires;
which every journalist wishes to emulate."
His conduct on Meet the Press was
"fair and courageous, balanced and
tenacious.
Liberal or conservative,
Democrat or Republican,
Russert held everyone
accountable to the people
of America.
He demonstrated the highest
qualities of professional
journalism as well as the
highest qualities of humanity....
a deeply religious man,
a dedicated family man,
a true American patriot."
Now Russert had the power,
the clout and the venue to
ask tough questions in the
run-up to the war in Iraq
which began in March, 2003.
There were plenty of serious
people with informed views
about whether or not Saddam
Hussein really had nuclear
missile to level London
and bio-weapons to kill
millions.
But Russert was part of the
Amen Chorus for a war that
sent countless men,
women and children to their deaths.
When it mattered,
he entertained no dangerous
differences with the White
House line.
Was this a performance worthy
of "a true American patriot"?
Did this "true American patriot"
commanding the attention of millions
every week not open his mouth to
lament the fact that the U.S.
government has been tra****ng
the Constitution and tossing
the Bill of Rights in the toilet?
Negative on that one too.
We've had seven years of craven,
culpable journalism -
across the mainstream board.
No one honors the re****ters
at Knight Ridder newspapers,
who were among the few ones
in the mainstream press,
pre-war, to hammer away
at the WMD lies.
They never led off Russert's
or anyone else's show.
Russert was managing editor
and host of Meet the Press,
host of The Tim Russert Show on MSNBC,
senior vp of NBC News,
NBC Wa****ngton Bureau Chief,
and regular political analyst
on the Today Show, The Nightly News.
So he was as responsible as anyone
for the press collusion with the
Administration.
But now that the administration is looking bad,
he's not a collaborator but a tenacious knight,
jousting with them,
'truth-telling',
getting 'the bad guys' for 'we, the people.'
Final question:
Since NBC had a huge stake
in Tim Russert's future
("Meet the Press" brought
in $50 million a year and
they paid him around $5 million a year)
you'd have thought the network's executives
would have taken a look at the tv screen
and raised the alarm.
Across the past three months
he looked in increasingly
awful shape,
bright red in the face,
overweight and sometimes
with a slightly glazed, sad look.
I told people I thought he
was set to die of a heart
attack right there in the
studio,
which is exactly what happened.
On one sighting recently he
didn't take his loafers off
in the gym,
and when pressed about this
casual approach to vitally
needed exercise, gave a wink.
Footnote:
A shorter version of the first
item in this Diary ran on
The First Post last Friday.
Alexander Cockburn
can be reached at
alexandercockburn@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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