seriously now, HOW THE HELL DO THOSE FOLKS STILL HAVE JOBS?

AND HOW CAN ANY ONE OF THOSE POLITICIANS THAT SWALLOWED REALLY EXPECT TO RUN FOR PREZ NEXT YEAR?

Sure, you Stutts boys can make snarky comments about titanium vaults, but Russert's sources - who are not the big shots but the mid-level guys - don't WANT to be on television. He said so. And as a blue-collar guy from Buffalo, he has to respect that. Which would mean he would have to talk to them, write down what they say, and then, I don't know - report it, or something. What the hell do you people want?

I watched the program and I liked it too. Regarding Russert's comments, I remember him suggesting that the big media's unwillingness to ask those pesky indelicate questions demonstrated that "we need to have an opposition party." See, I knew it was the democrats' fault. I mean, it was bound to be, right?

In all seriousness, I've long suspected the media works like this. In October of 2004 when the 1st Lancet report came out and Kerry didn't say anything about it, presumably out of fear of coming across as some kind of decadent peacenik, I guess all these bozos turned to each other and breathed a sigh of relief about not having to tell anybody since apparently Kerry didn't care about it, so screw it(???!!@#$&*...)

Of course, if Kerry had said something, I guess they would've pointed out what a decadent peacenik he was.

uh....

Great, the journalists that shoulda, coulda, woulda. I am ever so happy that now things shall be different as shown by today’s new and improved Washington Post.

“Iran is particularly important because it has aided or armed Iraq's major Shiite political parties and militias as well as Kurdish parties. U.S. officials recently charged that Tehran is also providing weaponry to Sunni fighters.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/23/AR2007042301877.html

Gosh and golly, is that really true? The Iranian government is providing weaponry to Iraq? Yup, things are really different now. “U.S. officials recently charged…” Polly wanna’ cracker?

The media is part of the Establishment, pure and simple. It's kind of pathetic to see them fall back on the old "I don't know jack"-routine to try and salvage their credibility. They knew or should've known - either way they are responsible for the mess the world's in same as the government. The idea that journalists are crusaders for what's good and right is mostly propaganda.

Have you ever tried to answer the phone when you've got your head up your ass? It's almost impossible to even hear it ringing....

heh, indeed.

we are all tim russert

we all are, and we all aren't tim russert...

corporate hegemony controls the media, but today that's like saying, "The sun rises in the east."

The nuance, a word and concept reviled by the corporate, multi-national media conglomerates, is that russert–and I mean his position or function as much as himself–are primarily servants to the power elite, shills, ventriloquists' dummy's even–spewing the misinformation handed them. They've been disciplined into learned helplessness by their ever more powerful corporate masters.

How many of us get up every day hoping for the opportunity to make the slightest difference, all the while knowing we are making our morning commute in pro-forma fashion to stoke the beast?

I despise russert and his ilk as much as anybody, I also know my fare-trade, g-local, white-chocolate mocha, extra shot, productivity enhancing morning addiction is as equally a symbol of my own daily acquiescence to the "big lie" as russert's gaping maw.

The full, unadulterated world is just too complicated for any one person to take in. So we depend on simplified narratives, which turn out to be lies of one form or another, to get us through the day.

Sometimes these lies start to serve us so poorly that they need to be revised. But have no illusions, they get revised to a new simplified narrative, which is just a new lie.

I think we're in process of revising some of those narratives now. And the revised ones will be better suited to the moment, and allow us to do what needs to be done. But they will still be lies.

But never mind, everything works out for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds.