Brian your post is exactly what is wrong with politics in America. Instead of giving Russert his due, you take his passing as a way to take a few more shots at media you disagree with. What Fox and Obama has to do with Russert passing is beyond me.

There are times to put your political beliefs aside, respect those who passed, and grieve for the family. Considering the guy died a few hours ago, your timing for this couldn't be any worse. I'm actually shocked you posted this.

LAMBERT: Well, Dave, you're a reasonable guy. But my comments about Fox and the rest were supposed to shine a more flattering light on Russert. He was an adult example -- for the most part -- amid a sea of shameless shills. More to the point, he was a main player in journalism, a profession all about acknowledging the good and the bad, the virtues and failings. I just finished watching both NBC's and ABC's coverage, and they both did the loving, admiring eulogies you'd expect -- which he deserved, certainly from his close friends, which they all are. More of the same will come all weekend, and then there'll be the funeral, and then the news cycle will move on, as Russert would understand. He will be remembered well. I don't think it's oafish of me to put a little perspective on his career.

We can honor the man, in part, by being as honest about him as he expected politicians to be about their actions.

Great piece Brian. Nice balance between humanity and content. They both matter in this case.

LAMBERT: Thank you, sir.

I thought he had a good temperament, if you get my drift. Found him pleasant to watch.

LAMBERT: He was affable. He was well-prepared. Many times he did ask precisely the most relevant question. But as you may tell I just can not give a guy like Russert - a major player in modern American journalism -- a pass on the Iraq war. As he liked to say, "This is big." You're damned right it is big. It is the biggest screw-up and scandal in my time on the planet, and Russert and many, many of his peers treated it with no greater indignation or curiosity than they brought to Monica-gate. It is fair, I say, for that to be a part of his obituary.

Brian and David - I still can't disagree more on this.

One of the sad things about the internet is how fast news and reactions occur. I saw Brokaw's announcement of Russert's death today and saw the pain in his face as he talked. The news was a shock due to the way he died (in the newsroom at NBC).

My point is that there is a time to go back and analyze his legacy. But not a few hours after he died. The family and his friends do not need this stuff this soon. The rips on Fox News and whatever other liberal themes of the day belong elsewhere.

"Honoring" the man isn't about analyzing him when the death is fresh and family/friends are still in shock. The analysis can be saved for later, there is plenty of time for that.

Neal Justin did a great piece on Russert on the Strib site this evening.

LAMBERT: You may be a more decent fellow than me. But really, Dave, I don't expect Russert's close friends and family to have any exposure to my deep thoughts. (I wouldn't change it if they did.) If he were a close friend of mine and I knew his family as intimately as Brokaw and Al Hunt and all these other people I've been watching, of course I'd say something different, and wait, as you say, to "analyze" his career. But I'm out here, one of a million bloggers reflecting on the career of a pretty significant guy in the chase for relevant information to extremely vital issues of our time. THAT is what he did, and by all means, he threw everything of himself into it. How do you not make some assessment amid regretting his passing?

Neil Justin's piece? With all due respect to the guy, it was pretty bad. Compare his piece to the Howard Kurtz piece the Strib is using as its Russert lead.

One local take I did enjoy was this one:

http://allyourtv.com/0809season/rememberingtimrussert.htm

Thanks for the heads-up on this site, Brian.

As I've listened to and read the coverage of Russert's death, I've wondered what other journalists might receive such high marks from his peers and an outpouring of grief from the public. (The NYT has some 2,500 comments on his death as I write this.) Possibly Cronkite, but he has long passed from the public stage. Russert had an Everyman quality that everyone watching could see and feel. Not the average TV pretty boy, but a big hunk of a lunk from Buffalo who made no secret of his blue collar roots. What other journalist's biography are we as familar with? His non-mystique mystique gave him a credibility perhaps unparalleled, even though at times one may have wished he'd go for the kill.

I think, with a day's hindsight, it's important to remember that Russert's power lied in his ability to attract the big players when they were making news. Part of having that access is walking the line between conventional wisdom and a journalistic agenda outside the existing parameters of discussion. Russert never went over that line, even though many of us believed he had the gravitas and standing to get away with it.

My primary qualm with Russert's approach, presenting a prosecutorial case against a pol by quoting past statements and voting records, attempting to catch an inconsistency or flip-flop, contributed to the focus on the trivial and made it appear as if evolving and growing ideologically were some sort of trick on the voters.

But sometimes it's about the substance of the issue, not the coverup. Russert held the feet of the powerful to the flame when he could use the public record. When it required interpretive skills or deviating beyond conventional wisdom he declined to play.

Even Brokaw acknowledged to Keith Olbermann, I believe, that Russert loved politics, not policy. So do many of us media junkies, but if we cannot recognize when issues attain such gravity that more is at stake, we fail as an interpretive journalist on a basic level.

Lambert paid Russert the right compliments. But these distinctions are too important to gloss over at a time when a disproportionate number of Americans are discussing the impact and role of a legendary journalist.

LAMBERT: As always, my esteemed colleague Mr. Platt, makes several excellent points. The only one I might argue with is that players like Russert -- who was very much about politics not policy -- were careful to play "inside" the existing parameters of discussion. Besides his ratings and standing in the D.C. political universe influential guests knew that Russert was not going to hit them with anything remotely like his personal indignation.

Tim is gone, long live the Tim.

Mr. Russert seemed to be a fine employee, and was richly rewarded for his work. I was not his fan however I am not really a fan of any pundit / journalist. On any given day, I shake my head at all of them...and I think that is how it should be.

He died too young, but this was not a tragic death. He leaves behind the legacy of his work, and a family that will not wonder where their next meal will come from. For that, he has my envy, not my sympathy. I am already older than him, and I wonder if I will be as fortune as him--in fact, I think I can safely say I will not be so.

So, I have better places to put my concerns. My best wishes to you all, to those less fortunate.

Very sad news indeed. What I don't get, however, is why NBC--and especially MSNBC--couldn't have made some time on-air to remember Mr. Russert. You know, get some of his friends and colleagues on to discuss the man's life and legacy. I'm not suggesting they should have gone overboard--nothing like wall-to-wall coverage of his passing. That would have been tacky, and something I suspect he would have found inappropriate. But it would have been nice to hear a little about the guy.

LAMBERT: Again, at the risk of sounding boorish ... a solid, hard-working, affable guy. But "a giant"? I'm beginning to think Reagan died ... again. What will they do to top this when Cronkite dies?

Frogman:

NBC did just what you described. Saturday morning they brought in the A Team for the Weekend Today Show. Matt Lauer and Tom Brokaw moderated from NY, while the NBC newstaff in DC gathered to remember and honor their boss. Beyond "Meet the Press," Russert was also the Washington Bureau chief for NBC. On Sunday Meet the Press was a similar gathering for MTP contributors.

There was also a nice interview this A.M. with Tim's son, Luke, on the beginning of this morning's Today Show.

Mssr. Monster:

You've got to get to know the nuances of the herp head of Grant Township. His is a rarified sort of sarcasm that requires a finely calibrated ear.

I believe Frogman was mocking what he experienced as NBC's rather over-the-top deifying and serial hagiographies of the late Tim Russert, who, as the Frogman says, may have found it all rather much.

Tragic when anyone dies suddenly at 58, but this over-the-top coverage of Russert is simply a reflection of the media's infatuation with it's self, it's holy members, it's fellow "saints".

Even locally, Lambert and Brauer can not resist chronicling every burp and fart emitting from the "newsroom" aka Strib.

It does get rather trying.

Say, Bri, any comment on The Glancers' (ClaudeNRick (tm))rather obvious Sunday word play around "philatelist"?

Why, Claude was even waxing on about how male images on stamps set him to heavy breathing!

This is , of course, the "family" newspaper of the Twin Cities....

I'd like a comment from the Editrix, Ms. Barnes, on this.

LAMBERT: Only you could make the transition from Tim Russert to Claude & Rick.

Mr. Monster:
I thought Frogman of Grant's long tongue was planted firmly in cheek when he wrote that post.

I think Cronkite's death will call for something more than mere words. Something fitting, like construction of a news bureau, impressive looking but understaffed - a shrine not only to him but to all overpaid, alpha-male, newsreaders. Perhaps unemployed reporters can be used as slave labor to build the thing.

Two things were frustrating and wrong with Russert's career:

1) He rarely asked probing follow up questions. He asked his gotcha question, waited for the answer, then usually moved onto his next gotcha question. Not always, but usually.

2) He was a Washington insider who, instead of covering Washington and politics, became part and parcel of the lives of his supposed subjects. In all the eulogies on Russert the ones that struck me most were the insider stories of him going to the White House, bringing his kid there to meet presidents, etc. Add to this his policy, revealed in the Plame hearings, that he considered EVERYTHING his subjects said off the record unless he got their okay to use specific comments, and you've a real tool of power, not a journalist.

I hear Chevy Chase is considering a comeback on SNL, with "...and in other news, Tim Russert is still dead" as his new Weekend Update punchline.

Journalist - one who writes of their personal thoughts and observations in a journal.

NOT people who read teleprompters.

NOT "reporters".

Not politcal pundits.

PLEASE, people, let's stop spraying that word around.

It means nothing (anymore).

LAMBERT: Let me guess, Sean Hannity is your idea of a journalist.

Bertram Jr., try pulling your head out of your solipsistic ass and try looking at the world through something besides the warped prism of your own turgid ego:

journalist
3 entries found.

journalistadvocacy journalismNew Journalism

Main Entry: jour·nal·ist
Pronunciation: \-nə-list\
Function: noun
Date: 1693
1 a: a person engaged in journalism; especially : a writer or editor for a news medium b: a writer who aims at a mass audience
2: a person who keeps a journal

You're in the neighborhood of 58 aren't you Mr. Lambert? What would you hope to be said of you on your passing?

LAMBERT: I'm in no danger of being subjected to the adulation being heaped on Mr. Russert, but a day's worth of kind words would suffice. My closest friends I'm certain will regale themselves with my myriad blunders and gaffes.

Actually, like the riderless horse trailing the caisson or Russert's empty MTP chair, there are already plans to honor you and your life by exhibiting the torsoless electric blue tights at the wake.

LAMBERT: Until this moment, sir, I truly had not gauged the depth of your cruelty.