Russert And ... Everyone

(AP)

It was hard to find a jury pool that was not intimately connected to the cast of characters in the Scooter Libby trial.

And it's even harder to find Washington, D.C., political reporters who aren't connected to those involved. Just look at the way reporters are covering yesterday's testimony by NBC News Washington bureau chief Tim Russert.

The introduction of Howard Kurtz's column today on the testimony, for example, addresses Kurtz's own role in it. (The piece is aptly titled "Russert and Me.")

"My name came up in testimony," he writes. "Then it came up again, and again. Suddenly it seemed like the whole criminal proceeding had taken a sharp detour into stories I had written three years ago." Afterwards, reporters in the gallery were asking him for information about the testimony.

Then there were the evening newscasts, which also covered Russert's testimony at the trial. Among them, of course, is the flagship program on Russert's own network, the NBC "Nightly News." As the AP's David Bauder writes this morning, Russert was most "visible" on his own network, compared with ABC and CBS' evening news programs.

Since the trial began, anchor Brian Williams has repeatedly talked to his audience about how the broadcast would handle Russert's role in the story. After the trial's first day, Williams said this to viewers: "And, by the way, as you heard, Tim Russert's name is a part of this trial. He will be called as a witness to testify in this case, and when he does, NBC News will report on his testimony as part of our coverage of the Libby trial."

Before last night's report on Russert's testimony, Williams noted on his blog that Russert's testimony today would also be covered "as a news story" and that Russert would be interviewed on the program following its conclusion.

We're guessing that'll be an exclusive.

[memekiller]

I've always said this would end up being a media scandal more than an administration scandal. The duplicity and proactive cooperation of the media in this anti-American smear job to silence a whistle blower is breathtaking. The media's working for the other side.

Afflict the afflicted. Comfort the comfortable. Speak lies for power.

The upside down bizarro world of George W. Bush's Washington.

[mattcat25]

Nothing was going to stand in the way of this invasion of Iraq. Bush and Cheney had their sites set on such a flounce of a Saddam Hussein's oil rich dictatorship long before the 911 WTC attack from Osama Bin Laden's Al Quaida Terrorist group.

The Whitehouse hired a Public Relation Company called the John Rendon Group to plant stories in foreign News media to help sell the notion that Saddam Hussein was planning a nuclear attack on the United States.

Of course nothing the Whitehouse was claiming at that time, and everything else since has been true.

[ronmwanga]

It is embarrasing just watching how entangled the journos are with the politicos in DC. And the odd thing is the delight with which the journos are taking in their proximity to the trial, which is rapidly bec oming an OJ-for-DC spectacle.