Recalling Russert as Political Operative in New York

The New York Times ^ | 06/15/08 | Adam Nagourney

[wm_tate]

there was another chapter in Mr. Russert’s career that is less known, and that offers another insight into his personality. And it is one which he arguably thrived at nearly as much as he did sitting behind his desk at NBC News: as a political strategist and operative in one of the most brutal political environments in the country.

Mr. Russert worked in the early 1980s as a counselor to Mario M. Cuomo, the Queens Democrat who had just been elected governor of New York; I was covering the new administration for The Daily News. Albany was a political roughhouse, and all the more so with a hard-driving new administration with big goals for Mr. Cuomo....

[OKIEDOC]

Excellent point.

I don't know of anyone on FR that wanted to see Russert die.

However, Russert many times cut slack for the Democrats.

That said he was about the only one on NBC that showed a modicum of fairness towards anyone considered a conservative.

I do hope NBC puts dOlberman in Russerts place.

Should take but a few weeks of tank ratings to end Meet The Press for ever.

[from occupied ga]

On another thread, some where railed against for these very comments.

I can never understand this. Just because some left wing propagandist dies, he suddenly becomes our friend? One mourns the passing of friends, not the passing of enemies. I suspect sanctimonious hypocrites who offer grief and "prayers" at the misfortune of leftists of lacking a true conservative agenda.

[from occupied ga]

I am heartily sick of it; there weren’t this many orgasms of phony grief when Regean or Nixon died. The closest thing I can remember recently was the Guiliani media love fest when they discovered that a left wing RINO from NYC was going to run in the presidential primaries (”America’s mayor” my ass). Didn’t some well know network sports reporter die a couple of weeks ago without the media Woodstock?

[Obadiah]

I am honestly sad to hear of Russert’s early demise, but the reality is is that he was a liberal and his views always skewed in that direction. The MSM are now canonizing one of their own.

There is no “conservative” counterpart to Russert. If there is a conservative, that person is always labeled as “the conservative” as in the counter point to the MSM norm. There is no conservative that is simply “a moderator” as the MSM pretended Russert was.

If Russert were conservative I have a hard time believing the MSM would be at all this gushing.

[SuziQ]

Bump for later reading.

[x]

Of course he had a bias, a point of view. Everyone does.

The question should be how fair he was, how often he let his bias show.

There are a lot of journalists on the tube who show more bias than Russert did.

And if you or I had his job, would we be fairer than he was, or just promote a different point of view?

From what I can figure out Russert showed bias in bland ways, accepting that things said about Kerry or Obama were "smears," or telling us that Obama's candidacy was "historic," or being tired of Hillary.

That's bias, but it's not much compared to what we get from other anchors and reporters.

I certainly can't say that he had no bias, but sometimes the bias is journalistic: if you pick one quote that makes a politician look bad out of a long discourse, are you prejudiced against that politician or are you just doing what makes for more interesting journalism? It can be hard to tell. If he grills your candidate and his opponent or a weak candidate and a strong one is that bias?

By now I'm as tired of hearing about Tim and Buffalo and the Bills and Luke and "Big Russ" as anybody else, but as television personalities go, Russert was one of the better ones.

[Dr. Scarpetta]

If NBC puts Keith Olberfuhrerman in his place it will make even CBS’s decision to anchor Perky Katie Couric seem brilliant...Meet The Press ratings will fall faster than a Democratic politician’s pledge to cut taxes.

They must love Olbermann at NBC, or they wouldn't let him put out the worst person in the world list every night...

[ozzymandus]

Rush nailed it today when he said the nonstop coverage of Russert wasn't really about Russert at all, just the media celebrating themselves. I never saw any big deal about Russert, he was just as liberal as all the others, he was just jovial about it. The MSM has lost their only credible face man, and they know it. Olbermann now thinks he's king of NBC News, and I sincerely hope a bloody power struggle wrecks the whole MSM and reveals their incestuous relationship with the RATS.

[ZX12R]

I sincerely hope they do pick Olbermann. Ratings would then tell me just how far gone the watchers of the alphabet networks are. It would be hard for me to swallow, if Olbermann hosted Meet the Press and did very well. He is a psychopath. Not unbiased, even handed or reasonable at all. Not even a hint of it. Russert was a lib operative, but far from the disturbed mental condition of Olbermann.

[PGalt]

Thanks for the ping. Interesting thread.

Boycotting the AP here...

http://ibloga.blogspot.com/

[Radix]

"Everyone forgets for just whom Russert worked.Some of the biggest lefties there ever were."

Russert was what he was. I'll never forget his slamming Governor candidate Shannon O'Brien about that tattoo v. abortions for teens episode during the Massachusetts campaign debate with Romney. I think that made the difference for Mitt.

Russert also admonished his audience to "watch Florida" two days before the 2000 Election fiasco. That was practically prophetic!