The Pitiful Now Public Record

The Pitiful Now Public Record –leak updates below–

He\’s been on my radar for a very long time, but not just for being soft on
Dick Cheney. He\’s part of the old
boys\’ club and I mean that specifically. Another big media man who plays
footsies for access, but also prefers the boys to the ladies in the same league. There\’s lots
of that going around, including out here on the web, as the gender beat goes on. As for Russert, he is one of the worst in the hack pack,
not only being soft on the powerful, but singling
out men over women time and time again, also leaving the progressive side
of the world out of the loop. At least CNN acknowledges the blogs. MSNBC scoffs
at them most of the time. To Tim Russert, the internet has not been invented.

But after the power suck up of Mr. Russert, the gender phobia is real and with women coming to power it\’s even more important. When
Russert is talking about family values, abortion and religion, his
guests rarely include women. When it\’s national security fughettaboutit.
That\’s just the way it is. But since the Libby trial everyone has finally had
to take a second look at the \”Meet the Press\” host. Right now the
focus is on him being a \”tool\” of the powerful. Welcome to reality.

For me, the worst is the pass Mr. Russert has given the administration, right
up until Joe Wilson let it rip in print. I will never forget when he interviewed
Dick Cheney right after 9/11, the atmosphere some bunker-style setting. Deadeye
Dick has had Timmy\’s number ever since. But now the news is out.

THOSE of us who get a kick out of watching Tim Russert every Sunday on NBC\’s \”Meet the Press\” are feeling a little hangdog these days. We always thought Big Russ Jr. was tough on the powerful. Now we learn that to some Washington media types on both the right and the left, he\’s just a tool for the powerful. (snip) A former Cheney press aide testified last month that she pushed to get the vice president on Russert\’s show to bat down negative news because it was \”our best format,\” a program where political handlers can \”control the message.\” Wow. Really? With his Buick-like physique, piercing stare and rumbling baritone — plus his interrogatory style of brandishing incriminating documents and video in front of his guests — Russert sure doesn\’t look like any flack\’s patsy. But to Russert\’s longtime critics, this was an a-ha! moment. Arianna Huffington, who once penned the critical \”RussertWatch\” feature for her liberal Huffington Post website, said she attended the Libby trial last week. There she found fresh confirmation for her view of Russert as one of the media handmaidens who carried water for the Bush administration in the run-up to the Iraq war. … .. Russert\’s fault? A lack of outrage

Arianna\’s \”Russert Watch\” is not the only place on the web that Russert
has gained notoriety, though not the type he likely wants. Just read Firedoglake,
especially since the trial started, today brings Walter
Pincus and Woodward,
the famed journalist who went on Larry King\’s show to criticize Fitzgerald,
while holding back what he knew. No one is coming off unscathed in the hack
pack world.

Roger Simon was aghast about it all yesterday on \”Meet the Press.\”
That silly Libby nonsense, what a waste he hissed: \”But I also have
to say, this is a nutty trial that nobody except the people involved in it and
the people covering it care about. Once again we have a prosecutor who can’t
an indictment for the real crime—leaking the identity of a CIA agent—so
he goes instead for the crime of, well, people didn’t tell him the complete
truth when they talked to him. I mean, there’s no underlying crime here
that anyone has been indicted for. This is just a show trial.\”

At least Howard Kurtz had the spine to speak up: \”But, Roger,
it’s a show trial that has put the spotlight on the Bush administration’s
attempt to make a case about pre-war intelligence that turned out not to be
true. That matters.\”

Yes, it does matter, a lot.

Then Kurtz said something that was, let\’s just say, ironic.

The problem for us as a profession is this: When journalists get up there and testify, beside—leaving aside the First Amendment question—it looks to people like—out there like we have become too cozy with senior Bush administration officials, not so we can ferret out information about national security, not so we can find out about corruption, but, in this particular case, in some cases, acting as a conduit for White House effort to put out negative information about Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame’s husband, a big critic of the pre-war intelligence. And I think that the people out there who don’t follow this all that closely think that we have become part of the club, too much the insiders. And that is a problem for journalism.

Too cozy with senior bush administration officials?

Not our Tim.

UPDATE (10:54 a.m.): Novak is on the stand. …. FLASHBACK

UPDATE (10:22 a.m.): Pincus testifies that Ari Fleischer leaked Plame\’s name to him. No wonder Ari got immunity.

Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus testified in court this morning that then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, not I. Lewis \”Scooter\” Libby, was the first person to tell him that a prominent critic of the Iraq war was married to undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame.