This is the definitive description of Tim Russert:
Actually, the balls Russert favors may be hard, but the pitches he throws aren’t curveballs, which go someplace useful. They’re sillyballs, which go somewhere pointless. Russert has created a strike zone of his own where toughness meets irrelevance. John McCain entered the zone last May, when he went on the show and repeatedly asserted that the Bush tax cuts had increased the federal government’s revenue. Hearing this, a tough but conscientious journalist might have pointed out that this is demonstrably false. Russert, however, reached for a trusty hardball and sent it sailing. McCain, he pointed out, was now supporting extending the very same Bush tax cuts that he had once opposed.
Well, yes, but this was a bit like asking someone who says the world is flat why he used to say the earth was round. The contradiction Russert pointed out was real—but hardly central. In fact, if tax cuts actually had increased revenues, then McCain’s change of heart would have been perfectly logical. The real problem was that McCain’s theory of the relationship between tax rates and revenue wasn’t true. In Russertland, though, as long as you acknowledge the contradiction, the questioner is satisfied. “You say the world is flat, but just three years ago you said it was round.” “You know, Tim, yes, I used to say the world was round, but times change, and that’s why I support the Bush administration’s bill to construct a restraining wall to prevent ships from sailing over the edge of the sea.” And so on.
In a nutshell.
