Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Russerted out

Lookit, I enjoyed and respected Tim Russert’s work like most TV news junkies. And I made known my shock and sadness when Mr. Russert died last Friday.

But goodness gracious... MSNBC is still devoting hours upon hours to memorializing the man.

After Russert’s funeral today, perhaps the cable news network will return to doing news. I think Tim would have wanted it that way.

I mean, wow... they really gave him the “full Reagan.” Johnny Carson didn’t get this kind of love when he passed. Walter Cronkite probably won’t either.

I hear that Pope Benedict XVI saw MSNBC’s funeral coverage today, then he told his College of Cardinals, “Don’t make that kind of fuss over me when I go.”

Too much, I tells you!

It’s left to me to restore some cosmic balance.

If you watched the “Meet the Press” tribute on Sunday, you saw one of Tim Russert’s greatest hits – his withering interrogation of David Duke about the scope of Duke’s knowledge of the Louisiana economy. (Duke was running for governor at the time.)

Let me tell you, David Duke, America’s best-known bigot, was quite delighted to receive some attention during NBC’s shivah.

Duke talked about it Monday with his friend and fellow ex-Klansman Don Black on Black’s Internet radio show.

I’m streaming a 6½-minute edit on my Vox blog. (You ain’t surprised, are you?) Click here to listen, if you can tolerate the sound of two neo-Nazis sucking each other’s ding-a-lings.

Duke actually boasts that “I beat Tim Russert!” in a “Meet the Press” rematch. And Don Black is all like, “They scareda you, man! They can’t fuck wit’ no David Duke!” Or words to that effect.

Anyways... R.I.P., Mr. Russert.

14 comments:

Ann Brock said...

Thank you for writing this, there is just to many phony folks in the world.

Kellybelle said...

I heard an interview where Maria Shriver said Russert would have been mortified by all the coverage of his death. Maybe it's because he died at work. Maybe it's because it's a slow news cycle.

Anonymous said...

I truly enjoyed watching Meet the Press and I'm sad Russert died an untimely death, but I too think it's over the top. If there is this much coverage for him, who can top it? And, how?

Hopefully, his pet charities will see the benefit.

Anonymous said...

Well, I don't think it's too much, since I was a fan, but the thing is, Russert was their news director, too and Washington Bureau chief, right? Maybe it *is* taking them a little while to get their house in order without him.

Phelps said...

Re: David Duke thinking he won, we already know that people who are incompetent lack the skills they need to know that they are incompetent.

(The link is a PDF of the study, fair warning.)

Elwood said...

I'm with coquinegra above. There was still news out there, but this was a death in the NBC family, and they needed to grieve. After the funeral yesterday, it seems that NBC has voluntarily removed Russert from the news cycle, as I'm sure TJR would have liked it.

That said, it's been less than a week, but the 24-hour news cycle makes it seem longer.

I'll expect a few tears and memorials around election day, as Tom Brokaw stated as much in his eulogy. I'll expect some discomfort up until and ever after a new "Meet the Press" host is named.

This is a deep wound for NBC, and I will cut them as much slack as they need until they find their way.

SJ said...

Yeah this is just too over the top.

Thankfully I don't watch cable news much.

Undercover Black Man said...

That said, it's been less than a week, but the 24-hour news cycle makes it seem longer.

I reckon that's right, Elwood. Part of my impatience with watching Chris Matthews sit shivah is that MSNBC got me junkied out on the minutiae of this wild 'n' crazy election season.

I mean, I got it bad, bro. I think about Rachel Maddow whilst jerking off...

I'm growing a goatee so I can look more like Chuck Todd...

At a neighborhood coffee shop Monday, I broke out with a 10-minute "Special Comment" on the unavailability of Sugar in the Raw...

I'm telling you, it's bad...

I dusted off my old G.I. Joes and my Johnny West and now I call them "the panel that comes to play" and I re-enact roundtable discussions from "Race for the White House with David Gregory" every night before I go to bed...

But... yeah... death in the family... grief... got it. I just want my MSNBC back!

Elwood said...

I mean, I got it bad, bro. I think about Rachel Maddow whilst jerking off...

Ha! It's too bad she'll never return that honor. Upside is that you get add another woman to the plot.

Anonymous said...

cheez and rice, dude! I feel like i gotta go wash my eyes out with soap!
and Elwood is right. Terrorist fist jab, Elwood ^5

bklyn6 said...

Everyone seems to have wonderful things to say about Russert, but I've been wondering if anyone had anything negative to say?

So I was checking out Progressive.org. There, Mathew Rothschild writes that he stopped watching Meet the Press after 9/11 because that was when Russert became a "cheerleader for war." He begins his piece by saying, "As the praise for Russert has overflowed, I just want to register, even at the risk of showing bad manners, a discordant note" and ends with, "even great mainstream journalists sometimes bow to patriotism and to power, and when they do, our democracy, and the cause of peace and justice, suffers."

Undercover Black Man said...

Similarly, Alexander Cockburn in the (far-left) Nation pees on Russert's grave.

Unknown said...

"My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life"... Ted Kennedy eulogizing John Kennedy, 1963.

As usual, UBM, you are right. I do not care what Michael Fisher says...

Undercover Black Man said...

^ Vince, nobody cares what Michael Fisher says.