Now that the funeral is over ...

Many of these people referred to Russert as a "journalists' journalist" and as "the most important person in the Washington media," and it's likely they believed what they were saying. If Russert deserved the title of Washington Journalist of the Era, it sure was a nasty thing to point out about someone whose corpse had yet to cool. Because during Russert's reign as NBC News Washington Bureau Chief and Meet the Press host, about the only thing politicians were held accountable for was one blow job. Other than that, the treasury has been privatized, our country has been marched into two violent quagmires, the rich have gotten richer and the poor have gotten stomped, and the Bill of Rights has been shredded and tossed as confetti at a ticker tape parade celebrating jingoism.

My choice to host Meet the Press? Helen Thomas.

Now there's a reporter who knows what to ask and how to follow up until she gets an answer.

In Bill Moyers’ documentary, Buying the War, Russert claims that he didn’t raise sufficient doubts about what Cheney and others were telling him because critics and skeptics weren’t contacting him. He tells Moyers: “To this day, I wish my phone had rung, or I had access to them.”

Millions were protesting in the streets, United Nations inspectors, the International Atomic Energy Agency, various foreign governments, not to mention the World Socialist Web Site and other left-wing publications, were refuting the Bush government’s claims, but none of this was accessible to Russert. In this, he’s probably being honest. Attuned to what the powerful thought and considering left-wing opinion to be illegitimate, Russert only had ears for Cheney and his fellow conspirators.

This would be more my kind of response:

Poor little Timmeh, sole boss of "the Cathedral of Washington Journalism," (Doris Kearns Goodwin) couldn't get any powerful people in Washington to talk to him?

He didn't cover the second biggest story of Bush's reign because nobody called him? Is that what Woodward and Bernstein did in 1973 - sit and wait for their phone to ring?

Plus, notice how they have to go back to 1991 - the David Duke interview - to show us how great Timmeh was at interviewing people?

Why couldn't they show his more recent tough-as-nails interview with Der Fuhrer or Cheney? Oh, that's right - he was busy licking their ass and pushing their bloody quagmire.

How can anybody look up to this joke?

It's one thing to not speak ill of the dead; it's quite another thing to re-write them into sainthood once they pass (see Reagan, Ronald or Ford, Gerald for other recent examples).

All over every news channel for the past week the talking heads are calling the sudden and untimely passing of Tim Russert a 'tragedy'. No ... a tragedy is what we have in Iraq -- a tragedy that Russert helped create, by carrying water for the Bush administration.

A tragedy is to stand on your honor, like Joe Wilson did, only to be smeared in the public circle and have your wife's career ruined -- a tragedy that Tim Russert facilitated.

A tragedy is what happened in Abu Ghraib, and what is happening in Guantanamo. Tragedies that Tim Russert didn't follow up on with Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney or Condoleeza Rice.

Russert died of a heart attack. Last I checked natural causes were not tragic, as they go with the territory called life.

Sad? Of course, especially for his family and friends. Tragic? Let's get a little perspective, folks.