[NYTr] Media: Tim Russert, Asshole of the Year (Krassner)

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Counterpunch - Nov 12, 2007
http://www.counterpunch.org/krassner11122007.html


Congratulations, Tim Russert!

Asshole of the Year

By PAUL KRASSNER

It's Tim Russert. The moment he said to Dennis Kucinich at a "debate"
among Democratic presidential candidates, "This is a serious question,"
you knew it wouldn't be. A responsible journalist might have asked,
"Why do think that Dick Cheney should be impeached rather than George
Bush?" But Russert wanted to further marginalize Kucinich--to ridicule
him in a flying saucer kind of way--and, like a trial lawyer who
already knows what a defendant's answer will be--his "serious question"
was "Did you see a UFO?"

Kucinich tried to explain that the U in UFO means "unidentified" flying
object. He joked, "I'm moving my campaign office to Roswell, New Mexico
and Exeter, New Hampshire." He pointed out that Jimmy Carter had seen a
UFO, and "More people--" Russert interrupted him with a statistic: 14%
of Americans had seen UFOs. Kucinich asked him to repeat that number,
as if to thank him for inadvertently providing him with the UFO
sighters vote. Russert repeated the number and, with the smug
satisfaction of having generated a guaranteed sound bite, he said, "I
want to ask Senator Obama..."

There was a predictable trickle-down effect. Even Bill Maher mocked
Kucinich, though Maher's real target should've been Russert. A few days
later, I met a woman who asked me who my ideal candidate is. "Dennis
Kucinich," I said. She responded, "Isn't he the one who said he saw
some Martians?" Of course, there's a video of that encounter in the
secret government implied-blackmail lock-box, along with the video of a
threesome--Charles Schumer, Dianne Feinstein and a billy goat--and the
video of Rudy Guliani performing an abortion on Pat Robertson's
mistress.

Ironically, Russert's co-moderator, Brian Williams--in his capacity as
host of Saturday Night Live--referred to the mainstream media's
proactive assumption that Hillary Clinton will win in the primaries and
then in the general election. Fundraising is the name of that
particular political game, because the candidates with the most money
will buy the most TV commercials and print ads. Tim Russert gives a
claymation face to that open conspiracy. And in the process, that old
saying and song, "There's no business like show business," lands in the
outdated metaphors graveyard. There is indeed a business like show
business. It's the news.

[Paul Krassner is the editor of The Realist. His books include: Pot
Stories for the Soul, One Hand Jerking and Murder at the Conspiracy
Convention. He can be reached through his website:
http://paulkrassner.com/ ]