Russert's fault? A lack of outrage
THOSE of us who get a kick out of watching Tim Russert every Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" are feeling a little hangdog these days. We always thought Big Russ Jr. was tough on the powerful. Now we learn that to some Washington media types on both the right and the left, he's just a tool for the powerful.
click to enlargeWhat's occasioned this perceptual turnabout is, of course, the perjury and obstruction trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, where Russert wrapped up two days of testimony last week. Libby says the NBC newsman fed him the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, who is at the center of the trial. Russert says he didn't.
To ordinary viewers, though, whatever transpired during Libby's phone call to Russert back in 2003 couldn't be as jarring as what the trial has unearthed about Washington's deeply cynical attitude toward "Meet the Press," a venerable, 60-year-old staple of network TV and the No. 1-rated Sunday news talk show.
A former Cheney press aide testified last month that she pushed to get the vice president on Russert's show to bat down negative news because it was "our best format," a program where political handlers can "control the message."
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