As the pundits who showed up to vent their grief upon Tim Russert’s sudden death went on about his many qualities that they found affecting,I wondered what it was about Tim Russert’s work that was so extraordinary.In a time in which erudition is frowned upon and even considered nerdish, none of the pundits could provide a shred of evidence for Tim Russert’s knowledge base.

His knowledge was limited to a few square miles around Washington, D.C. and quite possibly also around the posh island of Nantucket where men of his means flock to get away from the riffraff.By his own admission he had given up on his idealism which he developed during his internship with Senator Moynihan.He was bent on acquiring wealth and he realized that idealism is for paupers.Acquisition of wealth required that you make the wealthy comfortable.Russert did it better than anyone in the NBC menagerie by cozying up to the neanderthal Chairman,Jack Welch of GE/NBC.

Welch realized that he had an eager lapdog who will do his bidding and gave him the chair at Meet the Press.As the moderator of that show, Russert managed to carry out the edicts of Jack Welch and, by osmosis, those of the Republican Party.He managed to produce a show titled “A Day in the Life of President Bush”, which outdid all others in dressing up an idiot in  philosopher’s clothes.Welch was so impressed by that performance he made Russert a very wealthy man by showering him with salary, bonuses and stock options.Russert, not content with this, decided that he would reap even greater benefits by becoming Jack Welch’s neighbor in Nantucket Island.

It is this that the network mourners of a few days ago were regretting.Now that Russert was gone, and Jack Welch is out of the picture, how do I cozy up to Jeff Immelt(current GE CEO) and come at least close to the harvest Russert reaped?This was a thought on  everyone’s mind.

In our society, money occupies a central place.If you have it you are good.If you have it in plenty you must be very good.And if you have it in incalculable amounts, you must be wiser than Solomon.Russert showed through his ability to decipher the ways of corporate titans that the purse strings could be loosened to one’s benefit by saying the right things.And even more importantly, not saying the things your corporate masters don’t want said.

This is why shows like Meet the Press cannot examine why there were no WMDs and why Judith Miller’s piece of trash was quoted on the show by Cheney during the run up to the Iraq War.Russert made sure that MTP was a sanctuary for corporate and administration criminals as they lay waste to civilians, nearly a million of them, for the crime of being brownskinned Iraqis.

That the pundits would mourn such a man for more than fourteen hours does not give one hope that the times they are gonna be a-changing any time soon.

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