Friday, June 13, 2008

Tim Russert Dies at 58

I'm truly shocked and saddened by this news. Not just because he was so young, or because he died of a disease that has plagued my own father for so long, but because Tim Russert has played a role in my life since I was a kid. I can't believe he won't be there Sunday morning. I've been watching Meet the Press since I was 10 or 12 years old. If it's Sunday....

I've had a weird and obsessive interest in politics from a young age, and a big part of that was the soothing regularity of Russert's Sunday morning interviews. It's not an accident that I wound up living in D.C. and interning on Capital Hill. I watched Russert and I watched CNN's Inside Politics, and I knew this is where I needed to be.

I'm devastated that he won't have the chance to participate in the upcoming election. I'm certain he shared my excitement, and we are all poorer to have lost his commentary and reporting on such an historic moment in American political history. No one can replace him, regardless of what happens to Meet the Press. It's like the world's biggest Red Sox fan dying right before the Sox won the World Series. It just isn't fair.

God bless him. 1950 - 2008. Far too soon.

Terrorist Baby Mamas Sell Donuts, Fox Reports

It comes as no surprise that Fox News is perhaps not the most objective news source. There is a difference, however, between a conservative perspective and McCarthyism. Sadly, the "fair and balanced team", shaken by the reversal of fortunes happening on the left-right spectrum right now, is losing their collective shit. A run down of the last couple weeks:

  • Michelle Malkin, conservative blogger and Fox commentator, expresses fear and outrage over Rachel Ray's "jihadi chic keffiyeh" (other wise known as "ugly scarf") in a Dunkin' Donuts ad. Dunkin' capitulates and takes down the ad. America breathes a sigh of relief before tearing into a dozen assorted.
  • Fox's E.D. Hill refers to a pre-speech double fist bump between Barack and Michelle Obama as a "terrorist fist jab". Crap. Apparently, I have been engaging in terrorist activity every time I pick up a spare down at the Lucky Strike. Should I just turn myself in? I hear Guantanamo is lovely in the summertime.
  • During a segment discussing conservative attacks on Michelle Obama, a caption on-screen described the candidate's wife as "Obama's Baby Mama". Wait, the Obamas are married? Oops... I guess they aren't single handedly shredding the integrity of the American family.
On the one hand, it's kind of amusing to watch the conservative screaming-head class go nuts. On the other hand...