No one here, certainly not Dave has "expressed disdain" for Russert. The subject of the post and the target of mine (and other's) criticisms are the exaggerations of Russert's role as a "journalist", "holding people accountable" etc. No one has claimed, as you suggest, that he was biased or unfair. Where did you get that from?

There's a serious, legitimate question about whether Russert represented the kind of hard-hitting, independent journalism that served the public interest, whether they be conservative or liberal-leaning, that used to be the norm in this country. That's why the Murrow comment (see above) infuriated me so. Whether Russert was "fair" to his guests is immaterial. He saw his job as getting these guys on the record--I get that. More often than not he would get an answer that was illogical or patently false and let it stand without asking the obvious followup question.

Again, he had a great show, I watched it religiously for years, and the record will show that he was one of the most important figures in washington during this period. I don't know if that's something to be proud of necessarily, but that's me. But here's what the record won't show: that he "held people to account" or that he was a peer of Edward R. Murrow. Those guys are all working in print journalism, sadly.