Reply #274: I agree with Nance

[Doctor Panacea]

QUOTE: Scott McClellan likened Murtha's stance on the War in Iraq to that of Michael Moore and the extreme left wing of the Democratic Party. Going even further, Cybercast News Service – an obviously conservative "news" publication – actually claimed Murtha didn't deserve the Purple Hearts he received while serving in Vietnam and insinuated he had actually lied to receive the medals. The fact is, anyone who stands in the way, or dissents from the Republican line, will face personal attacks of an unscrupulous nature from a host of sources.

Hurricaneric,

I could have pulled any number of quotes from your article, but the text above is representative. You wrote a good article.

The problem is that this is not about you. It is about Russert. I agree completely with NanceGreggs, and I will go even farther. Russert was a media whore. He curried favor with the big shots and apparently saw himself as some kind of diplomat and facilitator whose role was to provide a forum where politicians could tell their lies with very little challenge from him. He was essentially a politician himself, not a journalist. Of course, if it was politically expedient to attack somebody (on the right or the left), then he would do it. He was, as I said, a politician. I saw a clip last night in which he bullied David Duke unmercifully. Well, it was David Duke, so it was politically expedient for him to act that way.

And let us not forget that it was Russert who asked David Kucinich, right out of the blue, with no foundation in the current discussion, whether he had ever seen a UFO. What people may or may not remember about this startling question is that Kucinich, just a few days earlier, had questioned Bush's sanity. Kucinich had made a reference, if I remember correctly, to Bush's ongoing obsession with Iran and to some event involving that obsession. In any case, Kucinich used the word insane in reference to Bush. So what happens a few days later? Good old Tim Russert asks Kucinich, in a presidential debate, whether he has ever seen a UFO. Coincidence? Yeah, sure.

The disappointing thing in the media frenzy over Russert's death is that even the very few talking heads who have dared to be real journalists, people like Keith Olbermann, have also engaged in the public wailing over this whore.

My own journalistic experience? Not much, though I worked with the print media in a couple of capacities in my younger years. In fact, I was sitting at the editorial desk of a state-wide newspaper when Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre" took place. My own journalistic role in those days was trivial, but I was a witness to the whole Watergate era and saw how real journalism works.

I cannot remember the exact quote, but there is an old saying about journalism that its proper role is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. I am sure that I mangled the quote, and I do not have time to use "the Google," as Bush says.