Taylor Marsh – TaylorMarsh.com – News, Opinion and Weblog on Progressive Politics

guestpost by Linfar

The recent untimely death of Tim Russert which prompted an outpouring of praise and adulation for the host of Sunday morning’s Meet the Press, dumbfounded me.  If others were shocked by his death, I was equally shocked by the around the clock panegyric to his father, his son and his Catholicism– his adulation of the Pope, his patriotism and his good guy persona.

The fact is Tim Russert, longtime head of NBC’s Washington Bureau, was a biased hack! And there was no journalist more implicated in disseminating the Bush administration’s propaganda about Iraq.

More like a Brave New World version of a journalist, than the real deal, Russert was America’s leading  exponent of entertainment  vs information. His  famous `gotcha’ style–wherein each Sunday his  viewers waited for his punch, jab and  pounce on  that show’s guest–came to homes every Sunday for more than a decade, but no one mentioned on the occasion of his death that show’s journalistic contributions to  the public good. That he was good, no one doubted. But his work was not evaluated.

Could that be because after 4,000 GI deaths no one wanted to remember how he banged the drum to sell us the Iraq war. And they were embarrassed the way his much vaunted journalistic integrity  went sailing out the window after he revealed–without a quiver of distress– at the Scooter Libby trial  he had cooperated with the FBI in revealing his source. Let’s face it, there was no media personality on the public stage who was  closer  or more fawning  towards the Bush-Cheney White House than Tim Russert.  

President Bush’s swift outpouring of sympathy at Russert’ untimely death, if contrasted with his Katrina comments, were a marvel of timely consideration.

Tim Russert, for me, was an embarrassment to the history of journalism in America, a purveyor of political porn who promoted  sensation over substance. Change, growth and the ability to rethink an issue by American politicians was routinely  portrayed as dishonesty.  And God help the politician who had a long career in politics or a long public record. Russert excelled at researching every nuance and every change as if these were proof of malfeasance and dissembling. Unfortunately, he never turned this propensity on his friends in the Bush Administration.

Madeline Zane writes:

The biggest hit parade of Bush administration lies — Cheney’s claim that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met an Iraq official in Prague, Rice’s claim that the smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud — all happened across the desk from Tim Russert on Meet the Press. Those lies were that much more dangerous because they were broadcast, without being questioned, on a show with an inexplicable reputation for hard-headed journalism. In fact, during the Scooter Libby trial, Cheney’s former communications director testified that Meet the Press was their best forum for giving interviews because they were allowed to control their own message without being questioned.

http://www.unknownnews.org/080616a-MadelineZane.html

The fact is the misinformation never stopped.

On the May 20 broadcast of NBC’s Meet the Press, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) suggested without challenge from host Tim Russert that the alleged plot by six men to carry out an armed attack on the Fort Dix Army base in New Jersey represents proof that if the United States withdraws forces from Iraq, terrorists “don’t plan to stop in Baghdad. They are coming here as soon as they can get here.” However, as Media Matters for America has documented, the assertion that terrorists will “com[e] here” following a U.S. troop withdrawal is widely challenged by experts.

http://mediamatters.org/items/2007052100
05

This is from Corrente:

In a way, Russert’s deliberate distortion in Wednesday’s debate made Hillary look better to most of us, and not only because of her blanket rejection of torture as some kind of acceptable post-9/11 American norm; when Russert sprang his trap, announcing that the scenario she’d just rejected had been offered up by her husband and our former President, Bill Clinton, her quick witted response – “He isn’t the one standing here” – was her best moment of the evening. So far, though, not many people seem to have realized that Russert’s characterization of Clinton’s Meet The Press comments, circa, Sept of 2006, was essentially a lie.

/could_we_get_two_things_straight_please
bill_clinton_didnt_endorse_torture_and
big_russs_lil_russ_is_a_lying_sack_of_shit

In January, 2004, Sam Husseini, Communications Director, Institute for Public Accuracy, sent Russert a fax pointing out some egregious errors Russert had circulated  about weapons inspectors in Iraq. Russert never admitted receiving it. On the occasion of Russert’s death, Husseini wrote:

The survivors of those killed in the U.S.’s war in Iraq since the 2003 invasion cannot simply blame Bush. Under the guise of “tough journalism” Russert and others disseminated lies and built the case for invasion even before Bush got to the White House.

In an article titled, “How Russert Helped Plant the Seeds for the Iraq War” Husseini included these salient points:

December 19, 1999: With Al Gore as guest, Tim Russert said on Meet the Press:

“One year ago Saddam Hussein threw out all the inspectors who could find his chemical or nuclear capability.

Russert asked Gore what he’s going to do about this.

Sam Husseini left a message on Russert’s answering machine, and spoke to two of his assistants, telling them the inspectors were withdrawn by the UN at the request of the United States.

A year later on Meet The Press on January 2, 2000, with Madeleine Albright as guest, Tim Russert repeated the error almost verbatim. Again Husseine writes a letter to Russertlaying out the facts, and requests a correction.

From January 22, 2000-March 19, 2003 Russert never corrected his error.

Husseni writes:

Hundreds of thousands of people have died in the Iraq War, then Russert dies– not in the Iraq War– and Official Washington weeps copious tears for Russert and his Extraordinary Journalistic Standards.

http://thismodernworld.com/4354

The lie Russert repeatedly told about the inspectors echoed through much of the political-media system around the time Russert told it, and helped set the stage for the invasion after 9/11 — and it was a predecessor of the lie that Bush has repeatedly stated since 2003 that he invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein did not allow the inspectors into Iraq.

Russert not only aided and abetted Bush and Co on Iraq, his errors and bias in other areas were legion. Rather than help his audience become better informed he kept them misinformed, often refusing to provide  the very information needed to understand the actions of our government. And no better example of this bias can be noted than that of his so-called reportage on the Clintons.

And this predates his behavior in the now infamous MSNBC debate on Oct. 30, 2007, about which the next day Taylor Marsh wrote:

There were 52 questions asked last night; 25 had to do with either Hillary or Bill Clinton, including very personal insinuations, with 22 of the 25 being abjectly hostile. Tim Russert asked 26 questions; 14 were to Clinton, with 5 directly targeting her personally… In contrast, Barack Obama got asked what he would do about air travel; whether there was life beyond earth; and the question on which all Americans’ safety depends, What are you going to dress as on Halloween? When the air travel question drooled out of Russert’s mouth I thought I’d accidentally hit the remote to the Travel channel. But Russert’s softballs to Obama when compared to Clinton were nakedly obvious to anyone paying attention. When you couple Russert’s penchant for his all boys pannels on “Meet the Press,” there’s only one conclusion to draw…

I am not going  to belabor Russert’s well-known anti-Clinton bias, his gotcha-gambit-style replayed endlessly on Sunday morning’s as if this were real journalism, and his responsibility for the Iraq War along with his uncritical and pandering to the  Bush Cheney Whitehouse.

What I am going to say is that when we assert that the mainstream media is a problem, Russert was a glaring example. He was not one of the `good guys’ in both the way he created headlines and then conducted his witchunts for ratings. He was not accurate so many times they are beyond counting, and he was not an honest media broker. Russert way too often grandstanded for maximum audience impact regardless of where the truth might lie.

Of all the things one might put on his tombstone: Good father, devout Catholic, and loving son–  if one were to be honest and refer to his professional life– one might add as someone did in a comment on a blog :

And I still hate Hillary!

No tags for this post.