Tim Russert Is Embarrassing

Stop Tim Russert before he moderates again

The Carpetbagger Report:

In the last post, we talked a bit about how Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama did in last night’s debate in Cleveland. But I’d remiss if I neglected to note how truly awful Tim Russert was as a moderator. His performance was rather embarrassing — for all of us.

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The entire series of questions for Obama about Farrakhan was even more noxious, as Josh Marshall explained.

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Digby drove all of this home beautifully.

The country wants change. They want Washington to stop all the partisan bickering and they want a different tone. They want their government to be serious and deal with real problems.

Can someone please explain to me how that can possibly happen until something is done about the reprehensible political press? From tax returns to Farrakhan to footage shown by “mistake” to the endless, trivial, gotcha bullshit, this debate spectacle tonight was a classic demonstration of what people really hate about politics. It isn’t actually the candidates who can at least on occasion be substantive and serious. The problem is Tim Russert and all his petty, shallow acolytes who spend all their time reading Drudge and breathlessly reporting every tabloid tidbit and sexy rumor and seeking out minor inconsistencies from years past in lieu of doing any real work.

Judging by their silly questions tonight, Russert and Williams obviously know nothing about health care policy, Iraq, Islamic terrorism, economics, global trade or any other subject that requires more than five minutes study to come up with some gotcha question or a stupid Jack Bauer fantasy. It’s embarrassing.

It is, indeed, and it’s harmful to the process. There’s no reason for debate moderation to be this bad.