Glad-handing the Press
I still occasionally encounter troubling complimentary noises to the effect that Tim Russert is the most "hard-hitting" of the major media journalist-interviewers. There may even be some truth in that, in the sense that most of his peers are even more sycophantic, fawning, and devoid of the gumption to actually risk making weasily, conniving politicians slightly uncomfortable than is Mr. Russert. But we need to attend much more carefully to calibrating our sense of where we are on the spectrum stretching from aggressive independent journalism to paid flackery of the sort the Bush administration has been indulging in. Russert, sadly, seems to routinely fall to the "flack" side of center (presumably under "volunteerism" - do you suppose it is tax-deductible?). Given daily evidence as to just how gullible, irrational, and/or plain stupid our species can tend to be, that is truly worrisome.
An article like this one by Ms. Huffington should probably be required reading before any viewing of Meet the Press, sort of like mandatory innoculations before visiting tropical jungles. There is some pain in excerpting, as the entire post deserves attentive reading:
As expected, the latest edition of Meet the Press, featuring RNC chair Ken Mehlman, was another classic example of why host Tim Russert is fast becoming journalism’s answer to the “E-ZPass,” those electronic tags that allow drivers to go through toll booths without having to stop. On the show today, Mehlman was allowed to distort, twist, manipulate, obfuscate and "disassemble" his way through every stop on the disinformation highway.
The key to the E-ZPass method, as HuffPost reader Paul Harry points out, is no follow-ups -- or lame follow-ups quickly abandoned. And Mehlman is a master at dealing with those. His technique? Just repeat or slightly rephrase his talking point, and trust that Russert will give up, wave him on, and proceed to the next prepared question.
To see a master in action, let’s go to the transcript:
Early in the interview, Russert asks Mehlman whether "the president has hit a wall with his domestic agenda… What's the problem?"
The RNC chair dances around the question so deftly his moves should be taught at Arthur Murray: "Tim, I don't think there's a problem," he responds, and then promptly changes the subject to Ronald Reagan before closing with an RNC commercial:
"Before we provided prescription drugs for Medicare, we were told it wasn’t going to happen. Before the president was able to move forward with No Child Left Behind, we were told it was stalled. We just passed class-action reform for the first time in six years and that, too, was predicted not to happen."
If Russert were doing his job, he would have countered with some well-aired problems with these three accomplishments: the Medicare prescription drug plan was promised to cost under $400 billion over ten years but now stands at $724 billion (and, in a stunning giveaway to the drug industry, the government gets no bulk purchasing discount); the No Child Left Behind Act has been such a massively underfunded disaster that 12 states are considering legislation to get out of it; and the class-action "reform" will just make it harder for injured people to get a fair day in court.
But E-ZPass Russert mentions none of the above. Instead, he waves Mehlman through and moves on to stem cell research… about which Mehlman says: “This is the first administration ever that has funded with federal dollars embryonic stem cell research.”
Does Russert bother to point out that this is not much of claim since this is the first administration ever to have had the chance to fund embryonic stem cell research? Of course not. Mehlman is in the GOP Express Lane. No need to slow down for little things like facts. Move right along.
Russert actually allows Mehlman to get away with saying, "So you have an administration that is unprecedented in our commitment to more scientific research,” without offering a spit take, a rim shot, or a “Please, Ken, not even I can let you slide on that one!”
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An article like this one by Ms. Huffington should probably be required reading before any viewing of Meet the Press, sort of like mandatory innoculations before visiting tropical jungles. There is some pain in excerpting, as the entire post deserves attentive reading:
As expected, the latest edition of Meet the Press, featuring RNC chair Ken Mehlman, was another classic example of why host Tim Russert is fast becoming journalism’s answer to the “E-ZPass,” those electronic tags that allow drivers to go through toll booths without having to stop. On the show today, Mehlman was allowed to distort, twist, manipulate, obfuscate and "disassemble" his way through every stop on the disinformation highway.
The key to the E-ZPass method, as HuffPost reader Paul Harry points out, is no follow-ups -- or lame follow-ups quickly abandoned. And Mehlman is a master at dealing with those. His technique? Just repeat or slightly rephrase his talking point, and trust that Russert will give up, wave him on, and proceed to the next prepared question.
To see a master in action, let’s go to the transcript:
Early in the interview, Russert asks Mehlman whether "the president has hit a wall with his domestic agenda… What's the problem?"
The RNC chair dances around the question so deftly his moves should be taught at Arthur Murray: "Tim, I don't think there's a problem," he responds, and then promptly changes the subject to Ronald Reagan before closing with an RNC commercial:
"Before we provided prescription drugs for Medicare, we were told it wasn’t going to happen. Before the president was able to move forward with No Child Left Behind, we were told it was stalled. We just passed class-action reform for the first time in six years and that, too, was predicted not to happen."
If Russert were doing his job, he would have countered with some well-aired problems with these three accomplishments: the Medicare prescription drug plan was promised to cost under $400 billion over ten years but now stands at $724 billion (and, in a stunning giveaway to the drug industry, the government gets no bulk purchasing discount); the No Child Left Behind Act has been such a massively underfunded disaster that 12 states are considering legislation to get out of it; and the class-action "reform" will just make it harder for injured people to get a fair day in court.
But E-ZPass Russert mentions none of the above. Instead, he waves Mehlman through and moves on to stem cell research… about which Mehlman says: “This is the first administration ever that has funded with federal dollars embryonic stem cell research.”
Does Russert bother to point out that this is not much of claim since this is the first administration ever to have had the chance to fund embryonic stem cell research? Of course not. Mehlman is in the GOP Express Lane. No need to slow down for little things like facts. Move right along.
Russert actually allows Mehlman to get away with saying, "So you have an administration that is unprecedented in our commitment to more scientific research,” without offering a spit take, a rim shot, or a “Please, Ken, not even I can let you slide on that one!”
[clip]
posted by Sir Gumbo at 9:51 PM
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