"[T]he pantheon of hungry young men who have moved to Washington and shape-shifted, whether consciously or not..."

"... into something that’s more palatable to the city’s establishment. The blogger who, in 2008, tweeted, 'fuck tim russert. fuck him with a spiky acid-tipped dick,' now styles himself as the evenhanded, empirically driven adult in a room of squabbling, stubborn children. Even his critique of Washington, grounded in data and charts and graphs, is establishment to the core: This place, he says, is not like it used to be."

From "Ezra Klein: The Wise Boy/A tale of striving and success in modern-day Washington," by Julia Ioffe (in the redesigned New Republic). I'm not sure what to make of this long, long piece about Klein, but this is a funny picture to publish:



That's just a photoshoot misfire that ought to have been deleted instantly. To select it to illustrate the article is practically to announce: This is a hit piece.

I pointed out that, in spite of his loathing of being subjected to the journalistic gaze, he had agreed to be profiled not only by me, but also by New York magazine—simultaneously. The “people above me” he said, “seem to think it’s a good idea.” It would bring in readership, and Klein felt it would be “hypocritical” not to cooperate with the press when he, the press, was constantly asking people to cooperate with him. It was almost too meta to bear. “You’re sitting there taking notes and recording while I’m sitting here taking notes and recording,” he said. “It’s a peculiar situation!”...

Klein later told me that he found our exchange “slightly threatening.”

“Don’t take it personally,” one of Klein’s friends explained. “He didn’t get this far being casual about his image management.”

Oh, good lord, this thing has me sympathizing with Ezra Klein! Ridiculous.

By the way, a pantheon is "a temple dedicated to all the gods." (OED.) The figurative meaning is: "The group of people or things most revered by an individual, nation, profession, etc.; a group of people particularly respected, famous, or otherwise significant in some capacity; a set of things having acknowledged value or importance." It doesn't make sense to talk about "the pantheon of hungry young men." Either they hungry or they are in the pantheon. The ambitious young strivers are not the gods.

(Are there hungry gods?)

What's the best position for a 2012 candidate to take on the Arizona approach to immigration enforcement?

The Obama administration fought this law, in what culminated in an embarrassing performance at the Supreme Court this week. And Chuck Schumer's saying that if the Supreme Court upholds Arizona's law, the Democrats in Congress will rise up and kill it. But polls show that a big majority of Americans — and about half of Hispanic-Americans — support what Arizona has done — even after extensive efforts by the Democrats+MSM to make us all feel as though only terrible, racist people think Arizona's okay.

And I just want to remind you of something that you may have forgotten: the reason Barack Obama was able to overtake Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic nomination. What was the issue that tripped her up and gave Obama the opening to look like the sensible, moderate person?

But it was a question about driver's licenses for “undocumented workers'' – the politically neutral terminology for “illegal aliens'' which she prefers – that created the most trouble for Clinton during last night's two-hour debate of the Democrats staged in Philadelphia....

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has proposed giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, NBC moderator Tim Russert reminded Clinton. “You told the Nashua, N.H., editorial board it makes a lot of sense,'' he said. “Why does it make a lot of sense to give an illegal immigrant a driver's license? ''

“ Well, what Gov. Spitzer is trying to do is fill the vacuum left by the failure of this administration to bring about comprehensive immigration reform,'' she said. “We know in New York we have several million at any one time who are in New York illegally. They are undocumented workers.

We know all about Spitzer trying to "fill the vacuum," but let's not digress into the subject of prostitution in this post.

“They are driving on our roads,'' she said. “The possibility of them having an accident that harms themselves or others is just a matter of the odds. It's probability. So what Gov. Spitzer is trying to do is to fill the vacuum.

Ahem. I'm trying not to get distracted!

“I believe we need to get back to comprehensive immigration reform because no state, no matter how well-intentioned, can fill this gap,'' Clinton continued. “There needs to be federal action on immigration reform. ''

“Does anyone here believe an illegal immigrant should not have a driver's license?'' Russert asked the other six Democrats assembled on stage.

Damn! I miss Tim Russert! Here's video. I love the point — at 2:53 — when she complains that "everybody" — i.e. Tim — is playing "gotcha." Because he got her. And that's the moment when she loses.

After that point, it looks as though they are moving on to the next topic: protecting children — children! — from — horrors! — the Internet. We got a laugh watching the now-disgraced John Edwards scramble to: Children? Protect children? I would. But he shifts back to the immigration topic, not to take an actual position himself, but to attack Hillary for taking more than one position, and after all the years of "double-talk from Bush and from Cheney...  America deserves us to be straight.'' (Yeah, be straight, John. Tell it to the jury.)

And then Barack Obama gets his chance. At 4:10, the moderator (Brian Williams) calls on him: "Senator Obama, why are you nodding your head?"

“Well, I was confused on Sen. Clinton's answer,'' Obama said. “I can't tell whether she was for it or against it, and I do think that is important.

“You know, one of the things that we have to do in this country is to be honest about the challenges that we face,'' Obama said. “Immigration is a difficult issue. But part of leadership is not just looking backwards and seeing what's popular, or trying to gauge popular sentiment. It's about setting a direction for the country, and that's what I intend to do as president.''

That's obviously total mush, but he sounds calm saying it. He's pushed to take a position and — caught — he says that Spitzer has "the right idea... because there is a public safety concern":

"We can make sure that drivers who are illegal come out of the shadows, that they can be tracked, that they are properly trained, and that will make our roads safer. That doesn't negate the need for us to reform illegal immigration.''

So he agrees with Hillary's first position.  I had forgotten that. I can't remember how this issue played out and why it hurt Hillary so much and helped Obama. Maybe it was simply that she lost her cool and sounded dishonest, and he lucked into an opportunity to seem solid and competent.

I almost never watch anything political on TV anymore.

It's so slow compared to reading... and you can't cut and paste.

AND... Tim Russert is dead.

What would someone have to say on "Meet the Press" to prompt a follow-up question from David Gregory?

The previous post is about something Bill Cosby said on today's "Meet the Press." That was part of a segment about what Obama can do to help "the black community" with its "deepest problems." Also in this segment was Congresswoman Maxine Waters. Take a look at this:

[DAVID] GREGORY: You go home to Watts and you go out there and you see young people--the fact that we have a black president, that means something.

REP. WATERS: Well, of course it means something. He's absolutely a role model. I was watching the young boys from the Ron Clark school who have a--they were in a choir, and they have created a song about Obama. And I was watching their faces. And certainly if there's one thing you can say about this historic election, it is that he has created hope. He has, you know, let young people know and young black boys know that you can, you can indeed succeed.

Let me tell you about this parenting issue. I have--or we just had a Black Caucus retreat, and parenting emerged as the number one concern in that retreat. Now, as a public policymaker and a legislator, I think about ways by which we can be helpful in bringing about the kind of public policy that will assist families. And so parenting is one thing that I'm going to spend a lot of time on, because I think that we should dedicate personnel in our public schools to work with parents and to get parents involved. The PTA does not do that. But the teachers cannot do that, the teachers cannot be concerned about what is going on in the classroom and follow the kids home. But if we have a component in the school that's dealing with going to the home, finding out what is happening with this child, what are the circumstances under which they are living, and be able to direct resources toward that family and give families support, I think we can use parenting as a way to begin to deal with these very serious problems where children drop out and children are already considered failures before they reach high school.

I'm really feeling hopeless about David Gregory as Tim Russert's replacement on MTP. No follow-up question? Does he even listen to what the guests are saying?

Waters just said that the teachers can't follow the kids home, but that there ought to be "a component in the school" that — what? — follows the kids home? What sort of "component"? I'm afraid of these components! What is Waters proposing, and does Gregory have any capacity for critical thinking? How is it acceptable for government authorities to intrude into the home this way?

Then, Bill Cosby is going on about service:

... these Jesuits, I — they have an answer, and they make their boys go out into the community and give service... One of the things I've heard... is that when a person gives, when a person does a service, that there's something that happens to them emotionally. I've heard people in prison working with prisoners talk about prisoners breaking down and crying because they taught another prisoner, they mentored another prisoner to learn how to read. And that the, the mentoring person started to cry. You can't--as a policeman, as a policeman said to me -- make a man cry by punching him in the face. They don't cry. But here this man is, and it's something emotional about us giving to each other, teaching each other. And that's what this family's talking about.

Again, no follow-up from Gregory. Is Cosby suggesting that the government — like the Jesuits — should make their boys go out into the community and give service? A public-service draft? Could Gregory give some critical push-back?

Or was Gregory patronizing black people? Not only was he sparing his black guests any challenging questioning, he also abysmally failed to see the libertarian interests of black people as those guests went on about following black kids home from school to check on whether their parents are decent and forcing young black men into service. If those proposals had been made in a way that seemed to extend beyond the "black community" with its "deepest problems," would the light bulb in Gregory's brain turn on? What exactly are you talking about doing? How would you respond to those who would argue that this is an unacceptable — perhaps even an unconstitutional — burden on individual liberty?

Here's the post where I collect my favorite quotes from the past year.

This is an annual feature of the Althouse blog. I go though the whole year of posts and pick out the quotes that I like best.

"I have so many opportunities from this country. I just don't want to see us fall backwards, you know?" Hillary Clinton, tearing up for the ladies in New Hampshire.

"It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation. Yes we can. It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom through the darkest of nights. Yes we can...." Barack Obama.

"We know how to talk about eatin' fried squirrel." Mike Huckabee.

"A cartoon character is how I see myself and it's worked for me for 40 years. I would rather be a cartoon than a genius!" Dolly Parton.

"Because I'm an ordinary person, I thought that they meant, 'What's your biggest weakness?' If I had gone last I would have known what the game was. And then I could have said, 'Well, ya know, I like to help old ladies across the street. Sometimes they don't want to be helped. It's terrible.'" Barack Obama.

"In addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don't see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom. It is too bad if we associate it only with gray hair and old age. Or if we call searing vision naivete. Or if we believe cunning is insight. Or if we settle for finessing cures tailored for each ravaged tree in the forest while ignoring the poisonous landscape that feeds and surrounds it." Toni Morrison raved about Barack Obama.

"Doesn't it seem like she's being pimped out in some weird sort of way?" David Shuster, talking inanely about Chelsea Clinton.

"Listen, I'll never forget you. You were the only guys who would listen to me for a couple of months. Do you think I'd ever forget you?" John McCain, on the phone with the bloggers.

"I am not saying goodbye to you. I only wish to fight as a soldier of ideas." Fidel Castro stepping down as president of Cuba.

"I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother." Barack Obama gives a speech about Jeremiah Wright.

"I don't get too high when I'm high, and I don't get too low when I'm low." Barack Obama, explaining that he has "the right temperament for the presidency."

"Oh, damn. Where did you come from? I’m white. I’m entitled. There’s a black man stealing my show." The Rev. Michael Pfleger channels Hillary's inner voice.

"Oh, this is so terrible: The people they want her. Oh, this is so terrible: She is winning the general election, and he is not." Bill Clinton channels the media's inner voice.

"Maintain." Bloomberg flips out.

"I've been to 57 states." Best Obama gaffe.

"Ladies, doesn't it all sound too familiar? Once again, a woman is told to put her dreams aside to benefit a man, to benefit a party of men. Obama, a freshman senator who has paid no dues, is treated like anointed royalty; while a hard-working woman who has battled her entire life to break the glass ceiling is treated like a leftover meal, and thrown down the garbage disposal. You know how this feels. You've been in Hillary's shoes. You've seen the pretty boys that come in the office, almost no experience. They glad-hand the boss; they take credit for your work, talk a good game with real specifics, and then what happens? They get promoted while you, the hardworking backbone of the office, are told to go fetch the coffee or set up meetings for these dweebs that couldn't carry your bra if they had to." Rush Limbaugh channels the feminists.

"We now know who the Democratic nominee will be." Tim Russert, speaking prematurely, on May 26. 18 days later, he died, prematurely.

"My name is such a vanilla, white-girl American name." Ashley Holmes, self-renamed Ashley Hussein.

"This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." Barack Obama at his most megalomaniacal.

And this is the moment when I hit the wall. This gets us through the first half of the year. You'll have to wait for Part 2.

Tim Russert to be replace by David Gregory.

Assuming you loved Russert's MTP, do you have much interest in Gregory's?

Answer only if you watched Russert's MTP: What do you think of David Gregory as the new face of MTP?
	Excellent!
	Okay. I'll give him a chance.
	Eh.
	Blah.
	Terrible.
pollcode.com free polls

Paul Krugman wins the Nobel Prize for economics.

Interesting... to see such a prominent political commentator win.

Mr. Krugman received the award for his work on international trade and economic geography. In particular, the prize committee lauded his work for “having shown the effects of economies of scale on trade patterns and on the location of economic activity.” He has developed models that explain observed patterns of trade between countries, as well as what goods are produced where and why. Traditional trade theory assumes that countries are different and will exchange different kinds of goods with each other; Mr. Krugman’s theories have explained why worldwide trade is dominated by a few countries that are similar to each other, and why some countries might import the same kinds of goods that it exports.

ADDED: I haven't blogged Krugman too much over the years -- click the "Krugman" tag -- but the oldest post is about this entertaining confrontation with Bill O'Reilly, back in August 2004. Those were pre-YouTube days. How satisfying to be able to dig this up so easily:



AND: One of many quotes from that clip that made me laugh: "You are the most un-objective person on the face of the earth."

What Joe Biden said about the public expression of religiosity.

So I'm looking back at all my old posts tagged "biden" to see how I've reacted to him over the last few years, and he comes out looking pretty good.

Now, I didn't like his voting against John Roberts and Samuel Alito, but I understand why he did it, and I didn't object to his questioning the hearings. Simulblogging the hearings, this is the worst thing I ever said about Biden:

Joe Biden is hamming it up big time, dramatizing the frustration of not getting Roberts to say how he'll decide specific cases. We've been through this so many times, but Biden seems to think that, if he just emotes more than the others, the American public will finally see the outrage of a judge not committing his vote before hearing the case. Yet every time Roberts explains why he won't answer, he sounds so eloquent and even inspiring about the role of the judge, that it ends up making the Senator look childish.

I was pretty nice to Biden over the "clean and articulate" gaffe, and basically, I can see that I haven't disliked Joe Biden .

But there's one thing that really stood out in all those posts, and that was his discussion of religion at the debate that took place September 27, 2007. From my live-blogging:

What is your favorite Bible verse? Obama says Sermon on the Mount, but then blabs generically. Hillary Clinton says "The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Which is not exactly a Bible verse, but okay. Why should the candidates be ready to recite Bible verses? Kucinich holds up a card with a prayer from St. Francis, which fits his theme (peace) but, again, isn't a Bible verse. Edwards is impressive with "What you do unto the least of those, you do unto me." This resonates with his poverty theme, and I like the way he doesn't point out that it does. Richardson says the Sermon on the Mount. Yeah, well, Obama already said that so it's boring. You had time to think of a specific verse in the Sermon to distinguish yourself. "Blessed are the peacemakers" would have been so easy. Gravel: Love! Dodd cites the Good Samaritan. Biden: "Christ's warning of the Pharisees." Which is a clever answer to the question, essentially critiquing the question. The idea is: Don't parade your religion in public.

The next day, I reflected on that:

Last night at the big debate, Tim Russert asked each of the Democratic candidates to recite their favorite Bible verse. They all made a stab at the assigned task. No one rebelled against the assignment. Who would dare to use the occasion to do a little lecture on the importance of the separation of church and state? It worked for Bush, back in 2000, to sidetrack a question about philosophy into religion and say that Jesus was his favorite philosopher, so who will be bold enough to veer away from an invitation to display religiosity?

Joe Biden came the closest, when he said "Christ's warning of the Pharisees." If you understand the reference, it actually is a subtle way to imply that religion should not be used publicly for the purpose of achieving worldly goals. It's good to remind religious people -- especially religious people who crave more religion in their politics -- that Jesus set his religion apart from politics and gives Christians a religious basis for the separation of church and state.

Here is video of the debate. If you start at 6:04, you'll have a little laugh before the relevant material begins and you can hear what all the candidates say about their favorite Bible verse. To hear just Biden, begin at 8:01:



Now, I'm especially interested in what Biden said there because I was just talking to Bob Wright about the candidates and religion, and he was knocking John McCain for failing to take more opportunities to "witness" to his Christianity, and my immediate response to that was Christ's warning of the Pharisees:



I discussed this a couple days ago, and I was guessing that maybe Bob was reflecting his Baptist background, and I my Episcopalian background, while McCain was had a basically Episcopalian orientation, but had, more recently switched to Baptist, and perhaps this could help us understand McCain's varying levels of expressed religiosity. And now, here is Biden showing what I'd theorized was the Episcopalian style. Biden is Catholic.

Episcopalian, Catholic, whatever... I like this modesty about religion in public life.

"I know there won't be the outpouring of gushing praise for him like happened with Russert's death. But I didn't cry for Russert."

"I do for Tony."

Negative inspiration of the day.

"Tim Russert dis his best; we should do likewise."

So, Wisconsin State Journal, is that the way it looks when you are doing your best? That prominent headline has been up in that ironic form for over 8 hours.

Jerry Seinfeld: "I was on the phone with George Carlin nine days ago and we were making some death jokes."

"We were talking about Tim Russert and Bo Diddley and George said: 'I feel safe for a while. There will probably be a break before they come after the next one. I always like to fly on an airline right after they’ve had a crash. It improves your odds.'"

Wow! I thought everyone knew the Rule of Three!

George Carlin died.

What a terrible loss. You know I thought he was the best living comedian. We were just talking about that here — last April. I've loved him since the 1970s. There are decades-old routines that spring to mind immediately as the most brilliant comic riffs I've ever heard — the one about all our "stuff" and the comparison between football and baseball (and golf).

"That's the whole meaning of life: trying to find a place for your stuff."



And here's the football/baseball one:



When someone dies, maybe you think about religion and the afterlife. Here's what George Carlin thought of such things:



Now, George Carlin has a special place among comedians because he's got a Supreme Court case about him — FCC v. Pacifica Foundation. You can read the case, and you can watch his 7 Dirty Words routine:



He elaborated on that over the years:



The text of the Supreme Court case includes the FCC's transcript of the version that got played on the radio:

The big one, the word fuck that's the one that hangs them up the most. [']Cause in a lot of cases that's the very act that hangs them up the most. So, it's natural that the word would, uh, have the same effect. It's a great word, fuck, nice word, easy word, cute word, kind of. Easy word to say. One syllable, short u. (laughter) Fuck. (Murmur) You know, it's easy. Starts with a nice soft sound fuh ends with a kuh. Right? (laughter) A little something for everyone. Fuck (laughter) Good word. Kind of a proud word, too. Who are you? I am FUCK. (laughter) FUCK OF THE MOUNTAIN. (laughter) Tune in again next week to FUCK OF THE MOUNTAIN. (laughter) It's an interesting word too, [']cause it's got a double kind of a life - personality - dual, you know, whatever the right phrase is. It leads a double life, the word fuck. First of all, it means, sometimes, most of the time, fuck. What does it mean? It means to make love. Right? We're going to make love, yeh, we're going to fuck, yeh, we're going to fuck, yeh, we're going to make love. (laughter) we're really going to fuck, yeh, we're going to make love. Right? And it also means the beginning of life, it's the act that begins life, so there's the word hanging around with words like love, and life, and yet on the other hand, it's also a word that we really use to hurt each other with, man. It's a heavy. It's one that you have toward the end of the argument. (laughter) Right? (laughter) You finally can't make out. Oh, fuck you man. I said, fuck you. (laughter, murmur) Stupid fuck. (laughter) Fuck you and everybody that looks like you. (laughter) man. It would be nice to change the movies that we already have and substitute the word fuck for the word kill, wherever we could, and some of those movie cliches would change a little bit. Madfuckers still on the loose. Stop me before I fuck again. Fuck the ump, fuck the ump, fuck the ump, fuck the ump, fuck the ump. Easy on the clutch Bill, you'll fuck that engine again.

Hey, I love the "[']." Try to do a Carlinesque riff on [']. Not easy, is it?

And God bless Justice Brennan, who dissented in Pacifica:

My Brother STEVENS, in reaching a result apologetically described as narrow, ante, at 750, takes comfort in his observation that "[a] requirement that indecent language be avoided will have its primary effect on the form, rather than the content, of serious communication," ante, at 743 n. 18, and finds solace in his conviction that "[t]here are few, if any, thoughts that cannot be expressed by the use of less offensive language." Ibid. The idea that the content of a message and its potential impact on any who might receive it can be divorced from the words that are the vehicle for its expression is transparently fallacious. A given word may have a unique capacity to capsule an idea, evoke an emotion, or conjure up an image. Indeed, for those of us who place an appropriately high value on our cherished First Amendment rights, the word "censor" is such a word. Mr. Justice Harlan, speaking for the Court, recognized the truism that a speaker's choice of words cannot surgically be separated from the ideas he desires to express when he warned that "we cannot indulge the facile assumption that one can forbid particular words without also running a substantial risk of suppressing ideas in the process." Cohen v. California, 403 U.S., at 26.

They don't write them like that anymore. They don't even say "My Brother Stevens" anymore. They couldn't bring themselves to say "My Sister O'Connor," I guess, so they had to stop saying "My Brother Stevens."

Was Carlin political? Here's what he said back in 2004 when Tim Russert (of all people) asked him "Do you vote?":

No, I don't. No. I voted up to McGovern. I feel, actually, a little purer, a little more detached emotionally from it. I really have no stake. If you dropped me from an airplane, I would come down left of center, because I believe more in humans than I do in property. But in terms of the minor machinations and the way they put these things together, I've no interest.

He was on Russert's show promoting his book "When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?" On the longest 1-day solo drive I ever took — from Austin, Texas to Madison, Wisconsin — I listened to Carlin read "When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?"

I have a problem with the Ten Commandments. Here it is: Why are there ten? We don't need that many. I think the list of commandments was deliberately and artificially inflated to get it up to ten. It's clearly a padded list...

When these guys were sittin' around the tent makin' all this up, why did they pick ten? Why ten? Why not nine, or eleven? I'll tell you why. Because ten sounds important. Ten sounds official. They knew if they tried eleven, people wouldn't take them seriously. People would say, "What're you kiddin' me? The Eleven Commandments? Get the fuck outta here!"

I'm really sorry to see this man go. He worked long and hard so many years, making us laugh, bringing us enlightenment:

Mr. Carlin is constantly scribbling notions down in a notebook or recording them on a small voice recorder, and he spends most of his time typing, organizing and reorganizing his ideas in a library of 2,300 files he keeps on his computer — raw material he may someday forge into actual jokes, monologues or material for his books. And as soon as he has recorded a new HBO routine, he begins cycling in fresh material, so that over the course of two years, his entire routine is replaced, and he's ready to record another.

"It's like a sock," Mr. Carlin said. "I darn the sock so much that none of the original material is left. It's the same sock — it's my show — but the old material is gone."

"I have no hobbies and I have no leisure activities," Mr. Carlin added. "My greatest joy is working at the computer with my ideas."

RIP.

Tom Brokaw is the new host of "Meet the Press" — until November.

This is good — for us and for NBC. Can you imagine if they'd given it to Olbermann or Matthews?

The "Meet the Press" tribute to Tim Russert.

Are you watching? (It will be up later for on-line streaming.) [ADDED: Here's that video.]

They are doing a nice job. The graphic still said "Meet the Press With Tim Russert," and they opened to an empty set with Tim's empty chair in the middle, then tilted down to Tom Brokaw. (The initial view of the top of Brokaw's head was — unintentionally — humorous.)

The show is full of interesting clips of old shows — including one just now where he used the expression to "saw your leg off" to Bob Kerrey, a man who's had his leg sawed off.

ADDED: Tom Brokaw breaks up as he tries to quote something Russert said a lot: "What a great country."

AND: At the end of the show, Brokaw reminds us that it's Father's Day and tells us we could honor Russert — who was a devoted son and father and wrote a couple books about fathers — by honoring our own fathers. Then there's a photo montage played over Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road." (Russert was a big Springsteen fan.) They return to the empty set. On screen, the words: Tim Russert/Managing Editor.

Very nicely done. I especially enjoyed the sequence of clips where he confronted various interviewees about whether they intended to run for President. Hillary Clinton's adamant noes were hilarious.

So what was that thing Ezra Klein feels so bad about?

Here he is feeling bad. Here's the thing.

By the way, remember the AutoAdmit lawsuit? If you think those Yale law students ought to be able to sue the on-line idiots for saying what they did about them, don't you also have to believe Tim Russert had a cause of action against Ezra Klein? 

ADDED: In the mindset of the AutoAdmit plaintiffs, what Ezra twittered was a rape threat.

"But I can't think of any time in my life when I've felt so awful about the death of a single individual I've never met."

Jac has a nice, long post explaining why Tim Russert meant so much to him.

I ... had to watch ["Meet the Press"]. Every Sunday. He just made the news seem so much more serious, even momentous, than anyone else did.

Above all, he forced our leaders to explain themselves -- to answer the tough questions that everyone was raising about them.

And he did this with everyone, never seeming to discriminate based on party or ideology. I remember when John Edwards had a disastrous performance on Meet the Press in the 2004 race -- many commentators saw it as a major obstacle to him in trying to win the Democratic nomination. And I remember seeing him interview John McCain back in 2006, when he was just a "probable presidential candidate" .... Without being unfair, and even though he gave McCain ample time to defend himself, Russert left no doubt that McCain had shifted far to the right of his maverick/centrist past in preparation for the Republican primaries. At the end of the interview, McCain acknowledged his discomfort: "I haven’t had so much fun since my last interrogation."

Much more at the link.

So this is Russert's last interview? Who is the last person he names?

It is Joe Biden:

Msnbc: Who do you have coming up on Meet the Press?

Russert: We’re going to talk big issues with a debate: Obama vs. McCain. Joe Biden will represent Barack Obama; Lindsey Graham will represent John McCain.

Msnbc: Do you think Lindsey Graham might be on the ticket with John McCain?

Russert: I think he’s on the list. South Carolina is a solid state, but McCain really likes his passion and his ability to be on the attack against the Democrats on these foreign policy issues. I think Biden is someone who’s very much on Obama’s list because of his wealth of foreign policy experience, his knowledge of the Iran and the Iraq. It’ll be interesting. They’re both coming into the studio. It could be an vice presidential audition. A Meet the Press audition, coming your way Sunday, on Meet the Press!

Meet the Press! But it was not to be Meet the Press for him. It was to be: Meet your Maker. Ah, Tim Russert. I'm going to miss that guy so much. I almost want Barack Obama to pick Joe Biden... and John McCain to pick Lindsey Graham... as a tribute to our great journalist Tim.

Matthew Yglesias might want to chide his commenters.

Matt writes: "Shocking news that Tim Russert has died of a heart attack at the young age of 58." And his commenters act like jackasses. The second post is by "Dick Cheney":

Damn. That was the one non-Fox show where I could control the message.

And it's downhill from there:

i say good riddance.
he was the best example of the worst of journalism today.
we should not forget his role in helping get this war started.
after all, cheney went on his show because he knew that he would be able to "control" the message.
he was a fraud and a hypocrite and the world will be better off with him gone.
the only people who will miss him will be the republican politicians who knew they could go on his show and lie with impunity.
Posted by frankie d | June 13, 2008 4:22 PM

So now people feel the need to say what a great guy he was? Now I hope we can get someone that will ask real questions and not just gotcha's.
Posted by rob | June 13, 2008 4:24 PM...

so all of a sudden we are supposed to forget about all of the outrageously harmful things people like russert do?
if he had practiced his craft of journalism, there is a very good chance that we would have never gotten involved in such a harmful war.
if people like condi rice and cheney did not feel that they could go on his show and lie through their teeth about matters of life and death, it is very possible that they would have never felt comfortable lying, continually to the american people.
if he had actually been the "tough questioner" he supposedly was, perhaps he would have actually torn cheney's smug assurances about the coming war to shreds and the administration would not have taken us to war and wasted thousands of american lives and hundreds of thousands of iraqi lives.
he'll have to deal with his complicity in his own terms, but i have no qualms about pointing out a bunch of inconvenient truths.
if pointing this out makes me a dick and less than a class act, i wear that proudly.
Posted by frankie d | June 13, 2008 4:40 PM

Good to know I'm not the only one Sam. Seemed like a decent enough guy. This really is going to ruin my R. Kelly, "not guilty" party tonight.
Posted by laborlibert | June 13, 2008 4:40 PM...

This push-back sort of restores my faith:

Might the D in Frankie D stand for dipshit? You sound like AJ on the last season of the Sopranos.
Posted by laborlibert | June 13, 2008 4:51 PM

Oh, those last 2 comments were by the same guy!

The horrible virulence is back:

... Russert loved life you say? What a sick thing to say when you have read the kind of qualms that have been raised about Russert's moral shortcomings on this thread.
What about those million dead Iraqis? I bet they loved their lives too until they were ended by unsought and unjustified violence -- as opposed to gluttony.
Posted by The Fool | June 13, 2008 6:34 PM

ADDED: I see that not long ago, Matt wrote a little article trashing Russert:

So Meet the Press thrives, delighting precisely the sort of person who doesn't realize that a hardball is a kind of ball whereas a curveball is a kind of pitch.

Actually, the balls Russert favors may be hard, but the pitches he throws aren't curveballs, which go someplace useful. They're sillyballs, which go somewhere pointless. Russert has created a strike zone of his own where toughness meets irrelevance....

Russert's goal isn't to inform his audience. He's there to "make news"—to get his guest to say something embarrassing that lands in the next day's papers or on the NBC Nightly News. The politicians, in turn, go on the show determined not to make news. And why do they bother? Because... it's a rite of passage, and any politician too chicken to play Russert's inane games would never garner the respect of the political class.

"We now know who the Democratic nominee will be."

"I think that it's possible... having the spotlight was something attractive to him."

Barack Obama delicately but humorously slams Jeremiah Wright on "Meet the Press."