Out of respect, I haven’t written any analysis of Tim Russert’s work and legacy. That’s mainly because I am a strong critic of his work, and the time to criticize the dead is after they are laid to rest, not the moment they pass away. I don’t want to talk about Russert’s strengths and shortcomings. Not yet, anyway. But I do want to discuss who should replace him because I’m seeing a lot of stinking-thinking on the subject.
Almost all of the speculation I’ve seen focuses, kind of logically, on a replacement from within NBC’s stable of pundit/reporters. That means that the options are widely assumed to be restricted to Andrea Mitchell, Chuck Todd, Dan Abrams, Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, and Tom Brokaw. From that list I think the best choices are Todd and Brokaw, but I don’t see either of them as very good solutions. Todd is an up and coming guy with a great understanding of the nuts and bolts of electoral politics, but he is ill-equipped to host foreign heads of state, ambassadors, foreign ministers, and the like. Brokow, on the other hand, is already retired and firmly from another era of media.
I think NBC should look outside for Russert’s replacement. The two best political interviewers today are PBS’s Charlie Rose and Bill Moyers. They are both accustomed to interviewing people from every area of life. They are both extremely smart, and well versed on many issues in many fields of thought. If we want to elevate our discourse, we’d be hard-pressed to do any better than Rose and Moyers.
Of course, Bill Moyers is a progressive thinker, which is something almost never seen on television outside of PBS and CSPAN. Putting him on Meet the Press would force him to take on a more neutral role and somewhat mute his voice. But it would also greatly amplify his sensibility. If there is a real downside it is that conservatives would be unlikely to see him as a fair broker. And that is actually rather important when it comes to being the host of a Sunday morning talk show. For that reason, Charlie Rose would probably be the better fit. If Rose has a bias it is that he is too mainstream in his thinking. And, while he is a probing interviewer, he isn’t necessarily adversarial enough when confronted with blatant bullcrap.
What Rose would bring is a tonic to Russert’s gotcha style of putting up old quotes that conflict with a guest’s current positions and then asking them to explain the inconsistencies. Charlie Rose likes to cultivate a good conversation that draws out the logical underpinnings of an argument. This is similar to the style employed by Moyers, and it’s what our political elite desperately needs to engage in.
This is not what Chuck Todd is good at doing. Todd operates on the surface level of politics. He’s focused on campaign strategy, messaging, political alliances. But he’s not an ‘ideas’ kind of guy. My concern is that Todd would turn Meet the Press into little more than a glorified version of The Chris Matthews Show. There would be too much Village gossip and not enough hard-hitting journalism. It’s hard to imagine Bill Moyers engaging in Village gossip, and Charlie Rose has a way of keeping such things is proper perspective.
The executives at NBC are going to be tempted to go with Andrea Mitchell or Tom Brokaw because of their elevated positions within the Village, their familiarity with world leaders, and their large Washington rolodexes. But Andrea Mitchell is tainted in that particular Scooter Libbyish way that so much of the Village media Establishment is tainted. Any one that was truly prominent during the Bush years is probably a poor choice for a new era and a new president. NBC should anticipate a new era and that should inform their selection. As I look around, I don’t see too many experienced interviewers that are neither hacks nor compromised from the Bush era. Rose and Moyers are the best options I can come up with.
As for Dan Abrams, Joe Scarborough, Chris Matthews, and Keith Olbermann…all I can say is that NBC will live to regret any of those choices. Olbermann is the only one with a decent head on his shoulders, but he long ago tossed away any modicum of neutrality or, often, fairness. Sometimes he says what desperately needs to be said and I admire him for it. But he’s too much of a left-wing answer for the hackery of right-wing cable news shows. He’s not Meet the Press material. He, too, has been compromised by the Bush era. Abrams, Matthews, and Scarborough all have a very superficial intelligence. They’re sharp observers of American politics, but they’re middling analytical thinkers, at best. They’re no match for real leaders and the types of guests and topics normally seen on Meet the Press. Imagine any of them interviewing Desmond Tutu or Hugo Chavez, or the Dalai Lama. Now imagine Moyers or Rose interviewing them. Enough said.
