The internet is awash with people lionizing the late Tim Russert. For me, I really don’t give two shits if he’s dead. I feel no remorse, pity, or even sadness, except for his family who has to live without him now.
Tim Russert, despite the glowing eulogies being given right now, was not a good person. He was not an honest stand-up guy. He was not a check and balance to the powerful.
If you’re a journalist, and a very senior White House official calls you up on the phone, what do you do? Do you try to get the official to address issues of urgent concern so that you can then relate that information to the public?
Not if you’re NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert.
When then-vice presidential chief of staff Scooter Libby called Russert on July 10, 2003, to complain that his name was being unfairly bandied about by MSNBC host Chris Matthews, Russert apparently asked him nothing.
And get this: According to Russert’s testimony yesterday at Libby’s trial, when any senior government official calls him, they are presumptively off the record.
That’s not reporting, that’s enabling.
That’s how you treat your friends when you’re having an innocent chat, not the people you’re supposed to be holding accountable.
Russert’s lifetime low, however, was during the much ballyhooed Don Imus scandal. After years of Imus letting him on to promote his snoozy books about his father and what he apparently didn’t learn about friendship and loyalty from him, he turned on his longtime friend as he was going through one of the toughest times of his life and publicly came out against him.
And I think the discussion was not whether or not he said something terrible or offensive, but what should be the magnitude of his punishment, which I think is a fair discussion to have.
Way to defend your friend there, you spineless shit. You don’t question whether he did something wrong? Fuck you. I did. So did lots of other people, and we aren’t even his friend. You were. For a long time.
Friends have fights. Friends have arguments. Friends have disagreements, break paths, and never speak to each other again. It’s the way of the world. Sometimes friendship doesn’t last forever. However, when you’re a friend to someone in the public eye, and you’re in the public eye as well, your voice can be a calming one and may even diffuse a controversy. Instead of doing that, Tim Russert chose to dissociate himself with his longtime friend and let him swing in the wind like an old tee shirt.
That’s not what a friend does. Instead of defending his friend, he took sides with the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and everyone else who profits off the racism industry. With all due respect, this is not a man to be honored in death or in life, particularly since he learned nothing from “Big Russ” who he attributed all his life learnings to.
Good riddance, Tim.