Tuesday's Biggest Loser: Tim Russert (And All The Other TV Blowhards)
"Liberty is connected with prose, and bureaucrats who want to destroy liberty tend to write and speak badly." -George Orwell
George Orwell: meet Tim Russert.
And all his blowhard kin.
Tuesday's biggest winner was not Barack Obama -- though it's impossible to overstate just how stunning his victory was, scoring a 200,000+ vote margin in the wake of 24/7 media demonization -- but the American voting public itself. And Tuesday's biggest loser was not Hillary Clinton but her media surrogates, like Little Georgie Stephanopolous and Tiny Tim Russert.
I don't know where Georgie was drowning his sorrows Tuesday night, but Russert was front and center on MSNBC, doing his best to take it like a man -- which must've been incredibly hard. For weeks, the Russerts of this world fought desperately to force a narrative onto the American public that they explosively rejected Tuesday night. Forget the shady metrics, forget the endless parsing of artificially-split voting blocs (I just heard Hillary Clinton answer a question about her lack of black support by countering that she had great support among "working people" -- as if those were two separate groups.) That's all played out now. Sure, the comments appended to Huffington Post columns will be full of it, and that's fine too. And sure, we'll hear all the Obama-can't-win-because-older-left-handed-female-gunowners-who-own-more-than-two-snowmobiles will never vote for him -- and that's fine too, it's a democracy, and they're free to vote for anyone they choose.
And -- superficially -- Russert and Stephanopolous and their colleagues at CNN will stagger into the new dawn as well. But they blew it badly this time. Russert's 18-minute filibuster on Reverend Wright -- pinning Obama down under ludicrous question after ludicrous question at a time when US and Iraqi deaths are mounting, Haitian children are dying of starvation in the streets, you can write in your own global crisis -- was as naked a display of corporate media's hideously-misplaced priorities as I have ever seen. To watch a dignified man try to politely move on to substantive matters -- after he'd already given two entire speeches devoted to such a laughably spurious issue -- was to watch Stupidity bullying Common Decency...for eighteen endless minutes.
When you put that kind of backbreaking work into changing the narrative of American history -- as Russert and the others did -- you expect to see results from it.
So it was hard not to laugh at Russert's stunned face all night, as voters in America basically told him and the others to shove a flag lapel-pin up their ass -- not to put too fine a point on it -- and he and the others of his ilk (as well as the Mark Penns and Howard Wolfsons who puppet-mastered them so hard) were left with cosmic egg on their faces. They can be forgiven for underestimating the rebel spirit of the American voter -- many of us did -- but they will not be forgiven for their collusion in shamefully pandering to our lowest un-common denominator by race-baiting, topic-shifting, and McCarthyist guilt-by-association.
So, to paraphrase E.M. Forster, 2.5 cheers for the American voter this morning. If "TV Expert" was an elective office, they'd all be out on the street today, loading their dictaphones, glazed doughnuts, and overstuffed chairs into giant moving vans.
Pack it up, guys. Your bluff has been called in front of the world.
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I understand that the networks and the cable media -- all of them -- have united and are putting out a fall schedule for prime time, to be broadcast on all of them at once -- The Reverend Wright Hours of Power. The first episode will be on Labor Day and it will go between 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. every day, including Saturdays and Sundays.
There will be several versions -- the Hours of Power featuring Reverend Wright's sermons -- the Reverend Wright docudrama which reveals the innermost secrets of Reverend Wright's relationship with the Obamas' -- a game show and a sitcom both still being developed and a reality show called God Damn America with Wright's sermon playing in the background and a picture of Wright and Obama shaking hands as the graphic. The season ends the day after election day.
The media is spinning the shows as an effort to show the many-sides of complex issues in a sensitive, but humorous, light.
Hillary is doing a cameo, talking about her deep understanding, based on her "Little House on the Prairie" roots at Ivy League colleges and law school and private high schools, of hard working white workers and how they won't vote for one of "them".
Sounds like a winner, Nonamnesiac! Lemme know if you need another writer!
John Eskow
Could it be that these TV pundits have been the unwitting benefactors of Obama? It would seem so -- by provoking the rebellion by the voters that Mr Eskow speaks of. And not only that, but for bringing these issues up now. In the fall campaign, they will be old news. We also have to thank whoever posted those sound bites of Wright on YouTube, for the same reason.
One other comment: Does anyone else find it interesting that not one segment of one show dealt with explaining to us the design validity of a single poll? The news media spends massive segments of time hovering over the results of this poll and that poll, but not once did they have anyone on to explain how the research is gathered and what formulations are used to produce their conclusions. Polls were wielded as cold, hard fact which of course they are not. Why doesn't somebody go back in the aftermath of North Carolina and Indiana and examine which polls were drastically wrong?
Personally I want to thank all of the cable news personalities for their coverage. Your spin and personal agendas became increasingly clear with each passing day. These shows are exactly that, shows, and for that matter just talk shows. Somewhere in the passing of time covering the news morphed into inserting opinion, and then insisting it was fact. It is interesting to watch as these people now try to reshape their images in front of our eyes as reality sets in. Thanks media guys and gals, you have unintentionally taught me to think more critically and know when to edit out unsubstantiated opinion.
When they say "Meet the Press" ... do they mean that Tim Russert is THE PRESS? Given how much press exists today, is Tim representative of it? If so, my only comfort is that... at times like these, it is good to know that in the past there have been times likes these... or have there?
These news networks are becoming irrelevant. Take the 24/7 negative coverage of Senator Obama, they had little if any influence on the recent outcome in Indiana and NC. Thank goodness for the internet.
Funny,hard-hitting, spot on!
In my opinion the talking heads have order to do everything to keep the democratic primaries going. Every day they are making millions with all the advertising dollars the candidates are spending. Never before has so much money been spent. They are not pro-Hillary or pro-Obama they are pro-money.
Beautifully put! Thank you very much for an excellent summation of one of the low points in American journalism.
I caught Russert's performance on podcast, and that astonishing, endless train wreck was even more obvious without the distraction of visual cues. "Meet the Press", formerly the flagship of the Sunday public affairs shows, has been reduced to the level of farce. Counting advertising time, nearly half the show was devoted to a minor distraction no rational person gives a crap about. I thought Obama did well not to cock his head, look at Russert and say, "Do you have ANY experience as a journalist?"
I'd have turned off after a couple of minutes, but I was honestly curious about how long Russert would persist in asking one nonsensical question after another. After ten minutes, I was laughing and shaking my head.....a
You really summed it up, I have felt this way for months, Thank you for a great piece.
Thank you, Mr. Eskow. Great piece.
John Eskow: To watch a dignified man try to politely move on to substantive matters -- after he'd already given two entire speeches devoted to such a laughably spurious issue -- was to watch Stupidity bullying Common Decency...
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I'm voting for Barack, but your comment inadvertantly exposes what is - to this day - his own weakness and immaturity as a politician.
What he NEEDED to do was exactly what McCain did when the NY Times ran with the bimbo story last month: respond forcefully and change the conversation.
It's exactly what Chelsea did when confronted, on her college tour, by questions about Monica - a polite, but totally firm, STFU.
Barack could have said to Tim, "OK. Just stop it. We're done beating this horse. Let's move on to substantive issues".
Ultimately, it's a core competency for any candidate - including ours - to keep media hounds like Russert on a short leash.
I would have done exactly that, turn the tables and really let him have it, talk about getting some votes.
He can't. He's got an election to win, and America, we were told (and shown, theoretically, by the polls in PA) just can't tolerate and angry black man. Every time Michelle has done exactly what you describe, she has been excoriated as an uppity wench who should be "grateful" for what America has given her.
Perhaps the results in NC and IN show he could have fought back in that manner, but it was dangerous ground after all he had been through.
Let's just get through this freaking election first. Don't take your eye off the ball, because he is running a campaign against: Republicans, the Clintons, the corporate media, and anyone of any political stripe who is too prejudiced to vote for a black man. This is unprecedented, and we are in uncharted water in more ways than one.
Wrong, the news media would have eaten it up. I can hear them now. We told you so, Obama is simply another angry black man. Thats what they have been trying to do all along. Like i said about a year ago. They (news media) will try and put a pair of glasses on Obama, have him raise his fist in the air and say "by any means necessary".
It sorta looks like the corporate media attempt to stop Obama failed, sho nuff, because people didn't buy it. Tim Russert is the most prominent mouth piece for the propagandists who's job it is to keep America stupid. If Americans are beginning to act independently of the corporate media, there may be hope for us after all.
If "TV Expert" was an elective office, they'd all be out on the street today, loading their Dictaphones, glazed doughnuts, and overstuffed chairs into giant moving vans."
Oh...that was such a glorious vision I almost drifted off!
Hoping that when Obama takes office, one of his first acts will be to take a big long hard look at the FCC and how to ensure the Fairness Doctrine that might just make our country's MSM into something that resembles real news outlets.
I must hear Tim Russert differently than this guy does because I haven't heard even a single pro Hillary comment from his mouth. Seems to me that he was absolutely delighted with the results. They are all foaming at the mouth with the idea that they won't have to split coverage much longer and they'll be able to just trash one democrat rather than two. Apparently they think the pile on will be more effective that way. It is disgusting how news is no longer reported on, but instead, is controlled.
I wouldn't say he's "pro-Hillary" or "pro-Bush"; rather, he's anti-meaning, anti-listening, anti-change, and anti-smart. I didn't mean to suggest he and his kind have any set political agenda other than keeping the conversation as moronic as humanly possible.
John Eskow
I completely agree Mr. Eskow. Not everything anti-Obama is pro-Hillary. Tim and his colleagues have an agenda that includes appealing to our most base prejudices in the interest of ginning up ratings, and includes not having to discuss substantive issues because that requires work, research and intelligence. I mean, isn't that the point here? The people who are employed in front of the camera are simply of a lower caliber than the true journalists who used to occupy those positions. Norah O'Donnell is pretty, but she is no Roger Mudd. I choose an extreme comparison, but you get the point.
Also, the conflicts of interest are intolerable. What the hell is Andrea Mitchell doing on NBC? She is married to Alan Greenspan and can hardly be considered impartial.
An excellent additon to a superb piece of insight. Thank you.
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