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NBC's Tim Russert died of a heart attack on Friday. Only the deaf, dumb and blind can be unaware of this fact. Ever since the unfortunate death of one of the major players in the field of media and politics, non-stop media coverage has drummed this fact home to millions of Americans. Enough, already. This media coverage, still going strong, is becoming quite unseemly.

HAMPTON, Va. (AP) - If not for "Meet The Press" and its host, Tim Russert, Jim Webb figures he may not be a United States senator. And a debate moderated by the NBC newsman who died Friday was a turning point in Democrat Timothy M. Kaine's campaign for governor. Both candidates fondly recalled Russert on Saturday at the Virginia Democratic Convention and acknowledged his role in pivotal moments in their 2005 and 2006 campaigns. Webb said his September 2006 appearance alongside Republican Sen. George Allen on "Meet The Press" was the turning point in his narrow, come-from-behind victory over Allen...

[ Snip ]... I'll bet deep in the heart of that skanky pants weasel Olbermann he's plotting how he can swing into Russert's shoes when he's not worthy to lick them. There will probably be some crocodile tears tonight and then a casual couple of 'chance' meetings with NBC execs just after the funeral. Then he'll get his agent to call and raise the issue. Maybe even get some bloggers to start a campaign.... And there will be nobody at NBC to say, 'How dare you, sir? Apologize, sir!' Yes, it will be Countdown time for Keith."

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour. Exodus 20:16May God Bless Tim Russert's family for the orderal they are suffering after Tim's untimely death. Though he was on the Left with the rest of the NBC news department, he would be considered a saint when compared to Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthhews. I have been wondering for some time if Tim Russert's vague testimony about a conversation he may have had with Scooter Libby had been the lynchpin that effectively lynched Libby. It was. Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had cavity-searched everything that walked in order to "get something" on...

Watch this video where Chris Matthews displays his utter lack of class with Keith Olbermann. While almost every other journalist and blogger on both sides of the political spectrum are giving condolences and highlighting Russert’s deserved credit of being one of the most fair and unbiased journalists of today’s media, Chris Matthews used the opportunity to go off on an anti-war rant. He added insult by comparing him to the “American people” in the sense of being fooled by the Bush administration into supporting the war. Besides displaying how opposite he is than Russert on the subject of bias, he...

Don't get me wrong: I liked Tim Russert. If there was one member of the drive-by media who was remotely fair, it was him. He will be missed. Today, however, the drive-bys are in wall-to-wall mourning and retrospectives. As a historian, my problem is one of perspective. Russert's death, as with that of Peter Jennings a few years ago, shows how self-obsessed the media is. Has anyone ever seen a retrospective of this type on any of our soldiers? Of any of the innocent people killed on 9/11? Aside from Daniel Pearl, who was a member of the media, was...

Appearing by phone on Friday's The O'Reilly Factor on FNC, former CBS News correspondent Bernard Goldberg recalled for fill-in host Laura Ingraham how Tim Russert recognized there should be more to newsroom diversity than just diversity by gender and skin tone, that “you need ideological diversity.” Goldberg, who was forced out of CBS News after he pointed out their liberal bias, lamented: I wish his colleagues understood that part of Tim Russert, too. That he knew that we needed all kinds of people in journalism because if we didn't have it we were going to get one-sided journalism. Goldberg read...

I know this may come off as callous and insensitive to some, but it has to be said. While I have no animus against Tim Russert, I am again in amazement how thoroughly the news world has been turned on its head because of the death of one journalist. One of them.

WASHINGTON — Veteran NBC newsman Tim Russert died Friday of an apparent heart attack. The host and managing editor of NBC's "Meet the Press" was 58. Longtime NBC anchor Tom Brokaw went on the air with an emotional special report to confirm Russert's death. Brokaw said his colleague died at his desk in the network's Washington bureau.

In this natural flurry of news following NBC's Tim Russert's too-early death, I am struck by a fact that exists barely under the popular perception. In these rememberances about Mr.Russert, clear mention is made of him first working for the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynahan, Hillary Clinton's immediate predecessor as Senator from New York. It was following this period as a Democrat Party Functionary (DPF), that he joined NBC. Similarly (more recent and famously) George Stephanopoulis went almost directly from the Clinton White House to anchoring ABC's Sunday interview program. Chris Matthews of NBC's cable channels worked for Tip O'Neil,...

"It's just a shame. Tim was a regular guy with that perpetual smile he wore naturally all the time. He loved life and got everything he could out of it. Whether it was at dinner here in Florida while his son was taking golf lessons, or on the set of Meet The Press, Tim was always the same with me: genuine. He never condescended to anyone and was the consummate professional. He will be hard to replace. He was the closest thing there was at any of the networks to an objective journalist."

Tim Russert, the Democratic operative turned NBC commentator who revolutionized Sunday morning television and infused journalism with his passion for politics, died this afternoon. Russert, 58, collapsed while recording voiceovers for his Sunday morning interview program, NBC reported. He was initially reported to have suffered a heart attack while working in his office on Washington's Nebraska Avenue, but the network said later only that he was "stricken at the bureau" and subsequently died. Further details were not immediately available. Russert served as NBC's Washington bureau chief and the host of "Meet the Press," the top-rated Sunday talk show, which had...

When newsman Tim Russert published a memoir about his father, "Big Russ and Me," he says he wasn't prepared for the huge number of letters and emails he received from readers eager to talk about their own fathers. He's now compiled some of the best of those responses into a follow-up book, "Wisdom of Our Fathers." Russert, the moderator of NBC's "Meet the Press," spoke with Beliefnet about his father's reaction to the book, his own role as a father, and the place of prayer in his life.

With just over six months before United States citizens choose their 44th president, the 2008 election is already proving to be the most fascinating and potentially one of the closest contests in living memory. Among those who will help Americans decide are the ubiquitous political pundits who help drive the national conversation and shape public opinion.

Sources close to Arianna Huffington are claiming just that. Arianna Huffington is currently on book tour for her new political tome Right Is Wrong: How The Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded The Constitution, And Made Us All Less Safe. She's booked all over CNN, ABC, and CBS (but not Fox News Channel because she chose not to go on there). And NBC? Well, one insider says she was booked on Keith Olberman and Morning Joe to talk about her tome -- and then unbooked. " Arianna's accolytes are pointing the finger at Tim Russert, well known to be ridiculously thin-skinned,...

The liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America has gone on the attack against longtime “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert, saying he has “regularly smeared” Democrats on a variety of issues. In its “Weekly Update,” Media Matters launched its attack by asserting that Russert, as the host of Democratic presidential debates, has all but ignored important issues such as the mortgage crisis, global warming, wiretapping and executive power, while questioning Dennis Kucinich about his claim to have seen a UFO and John Edwards about his expensive haircut.

Tim Russert is a graduate of Cleveland State Law School, which hosted the last Clinton-Obama debate, but Russert never mentioned the connection during the debate, or during the post debate coverage. This seemed odd given the relative low profile of the school, as well as the fact that Russert managed to work in yet another reference to having grown up in Buffalo, "three hours down the road", during the middle of the debate. Viewers certainly would have found the information at least mildly interesting and/or curious. It seems like Russert is embarrassed by having attended a nationally unknown law school...

NOTE: here is the old story. I remembered that Tim Russert had become physically ill after watching 5 hours of footage of the Juanita Broaddrick interview. All these years, Russert has known that Bill Clinton really did rape Juanita. He had to know of Hillary's role in threatening and silencing women. For those who saw tonight's debate, many think that Russert was unusually tough on Hillary. Was this, consciously or subconsciously, Russert's way of finally doing something about the injustice? Was he putting a stake into the heart of the vampire? ======================================================================= NBC finally will air the long awaited Rape...

Calling Washington, D.C., "corporate-occupied territory," consumer advocate Ralph Nader launched his fifth campaign for the presidency Sunday. "I'm running for president," said Nader in an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press." Nader downplayed the impact he might have on the ultimate outcome of the race, saying "if Democrats can't landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down, emerge in a different form."