For the record, I haven't watched a single Presidential debate in its entirety this election season, they are seemingly exercises in annoyance, and my life has been too busy (you know, I had to wash my hair, and excuses like that). But also for the record, I simply cannot stand to watch Pumpkin Head Tim Russert talk. What a complete putz, without redeeming characteristics.
Charles Pierce, writing at Altercation, skewers Russert's performance:
I suspect that truth may never get its boots on in reference to the job L'il Timmy Russert did last night. Since social climbers, courtiers, and people who think Don Imus is funny likely already have set the performance in marble, do let me just say in meek dissent that the man now stands revealed for the simmering tub of abject Fail he's always been.
"What if giant metal monkey beasts land on the Mall and eat the Capitol Dome? What will you do then, huh? HUH?"
"Will you take a pledge right now to make sure that Ayman al-Zawahiri never comes to the Vineyard and steals my newspaper off my lawn? Will you? WILL YOU?"
"Your pastor has praised somebody who said something odious -- Here, let me read you the most garish highlights -- and now will you REJECT him? Not denounce him. REJECT HIM?"
"In my hometown of Buffalo."
Oh, bite me, please.
This isn't journalism. I don't know what it is. Investigative collating, I guess. The next time MSNBC decides to treat us to 90 minutes of TV star dick-waving, it should advertise it as such, and then I could've watched Tennessee play Vanderbilt like I wanted to in the first place.
[Click to read more in this vein Media Matters - The proud son of Buffalo ... ]
One more quote:
In a week when St. John McCain was being roasted over his lobbyist-laden past and when the FEC had started to look at the Straight Talker's cheap-ass lawyering around the campaign-finance statutes, Russert chose to spend useless minutes chasing Barack Obama around something Obama had said last year. Hillary was dead right there at the end, although she needs work on the snark, too. Nothing about China. Nothing about FISA or signing statements or the wreck of the constitutional order. Nothing about climate change. But plenty of time for a three-rail shot about Obama, his pastor, and Farrakhan, whose name I swear I have not heard twice in the past decade. (Marty Peretz hears it through the fillings in his teeth, but that's another matter.) That stuff was truly rank. What in the name of god does the relationship of Obama's pastor to Louis Farrakhan have to do with being president of the United States? John McCain's state co-chairman in Arizona, a sitting congresscritter, got himself indicted this week. Think that'll come up any time soon? Hell, if you wanted to tweak Obama about somebody with whom he had a more tangible connection, Tony Rezko went on trial YESTERDAY. No mention of it that I heard. The only reason to bring up Farrakhan was to play the Scary Negro card. At this point the lines between hackery and shillery form a perfect right angle and stretch on to infinity. And, by the way, it would help MSNBC's campaign to become the Scourge Of Public Bigots if it didn't keep putting Pat Buchanan on my TV screen every 11 seconds.
