"He Was Loving This Election" - TIME
Joe Klein, an unabashedly liberal commentator from Time, had one argument with Russert over the years. He treated the Clinton's too harshly. Wow. This is about the third time I've seen the "loving this election", and I think we all know why, Russert was excited about seeing Obama elected.
I don't know how Russert squared his Catholic Christianity with his political party's Abortion on Demand and Gay Marriage, but somehow he did. It is unreasonable to expect any political party to come close to agreeing with our views on anything close to everything. We all are going to live with some level of "cognitive dissonance" given that there are only 2 real choices.
Russert would certainly have been one of the top figures in the MSM. I'm struck with the similarities and differences with Buckley's passing. The loss of Buckley was of course way less tragic, he was older, it was expected. There was no secret as to where Buckley stood on ideas, and the media and politicians treated his death in the way they thought was "accordingly" ... "the conservatives lost a great ...".
Certainly every story about Russert that we read, including this one, tells us who he was, and of course it isn't as if we didn't already know that. He proudly worked for Cuomo and Moynihan, Dad, "Big Russ" a retired city employee, still very close, still mostly see eye to eye. This is "the old America", the "pre Reagan America" that the MSM and the left sees as the way things ought to be. "Everyone can agree" -- it is an America from their point of view where there really ought to be "no sides" on anything of merit. "Everyone agrees that Uncle Walter Cronkite is telling the truth". To suggest that Uncle Walter or Tim Russert might be just regular humans with normal human biases has somehow beccome inherently evil, it is the "politics of division", and it is high time we put that behind us.
When was it that actual diversity of thought became somehow wrong? Is that really what America is supposed to be? Diversity of race and behavior, but no diversity of thought? What is it that somehow makes is wrong to celebrate the life of Bill Buckley as "one of them" and for the MSM to celebrate the life of Tim Russert as "one of us" from the point of view of the "liberal elite, MSM, Democrat view"? Isn't that what he was? As MSM spokesman go, I'd certainly rather have had Russert have a lot longer career than Dan Rather. Even though Russert actually worked for Democrats, my belief has always been that he would be less likely than Rather to actually fake documents or use other methods to try to make the news come out his way.
"If Fascism comes to America, it will be called Americanism". If it comes to America, it will DEFINITELY come from the "dominant culture". That is what fascism is, the dominant culture politicising life to the point where holding views other than those dominant views is either actually or defacto criminal. If you don't agree with gays being married, that is "hate speech"--you can lose your job, or potentially be incarcerated if you make your thoughts known. We are on the path to make global warming a similar thought issue. I have no idea how long the list will become, can anyone be allowed to be against "hope" or "change"?
At his core I think Russert prided himself in being "one of the folks, down to earth, for the common man". Those are all good feelings, but they can also be dangerous. Our founding fathers had a solid understanding of the "tyranny of the majority", and realized that it was hard to the masses to realize that all progress depends on the "UNcommon man".
Russert was well loved by the "standard MSM" and many of the common folks. As MSM types go, I think he at least gave it his best shot to ask tough questions on both sides of the isle from time to time, but it was always clear where his heart was as well. In my book, that is fine, the only problem is when the dominant culture claims that their view is "truth", rather than just "their view".
Joe Klein, an unabashedly liberal commentator from Time, had one argument with Russert over the years. He treated the Clinton's too harshly. Wow. This is about the third time I've seen the "loving this election", and I think we all know why, Russert was excited about seeing Obama elected.
I don't know how Russert squared his Catholic Christianity with his political party's Abortion on Demand and Gay Marriage, but somehow he did. It is unreasonable to expect any political party to come close to agreeing with our views on anything close to everything. We all are going to live with some level of "cognitive dissonance" given that there are only 2 real choices.
Russert would certainly have been one of the top figures in the MSM. I'm struck with the similarities and differences with Buckley's passing. The loss of Buckley was of course way less tragic, he was older, it was expected. There was no secret as to where Buckley stood on ideas, and the media and politicians treated his death in the way they thought was "accordingly" ... "the conservatives lost a great ...".
Certainly every story about Russert that we read, including this one, tells us who he was, and of course it isn't as if we didn't already know that. He proudly worked for Cuomo and Moynihan, Dad, "Big Russ" a retired city employee, still very close, still mostly see eye to eye. This is "the old America", the "pre Reagan America" that the MSM and the left sees as the way things ought to be. "Everyone can agree" -- it is an America from their point of view where there really ought to be "no sides" on anything of merit. "Everyone agrees that Uncle Walter Cronkite is telling the truth". To suggest that Uncle Walter or Tim Russert might be just regular humans with normal human biases has somehow beccome inherently evil, it is the "politics of division", and it is high time we put that behind us.
When was it that actual diversity of thought became somehow wrong? Is that really what America is supposed to be? Diversity of race and behavior, but no diversity of thought? What is it that somehow makes is wrong to celebrate the life of Bill Buckley as "one of them" and for the MSM to celebrate the life of Tim Russert as "one of us" from the point of view of the "liberal elite, MSM, Democrat view"? Isn't that what he was? As MSM spokesman go, I'd certainly rather have had Russert have a lot longer career than Dan Rather. Even though Russert actually worked for Democrats, my belief has always been that he would be less likely than Rather to actually fake documents or use other methods to try to make the news come out his way.
"If Fascism comes to America, it will be called Americanism". If it comes to America, it will DEFINITELY come from the "dominant culture". That is what fascism is, the dominant culture politicising life to the point where holding views other than those dominant views is either actually or defacto criminal. If you don't agree with gays being married, that is "hate speech"--you can lose your job, or potentially be incarcerated if you make your thoughts known. We are on the path to make global warming a similar thought issue. I have no idea how long the list will become, can anyone be allowed to be against "hope" or "change"?
At his core I think Russert prided himself in being "one of the folks, down to earth, for the common man". Those are all good feelings, but they can also be dangerous. Our founding fathers had a solid understanding of the "tyranny of the majority", and realized that it was hard to the masses to realize that all progress depends on the "UNcommon man".
Russert was well loved by the "standard MSM" and many of the common folks. As MSM types go, I think he at least gave it his best shot to ask tough questions on both sides of the isle from time to time, but it was always clear where his heart was as well. In my book, that is fine, the only problem is when the dominant culture claims that their view is "truth", rather than just "their view".
No comments:
Post a Comment