Yes, Russert would often have some reference to an obscure quote made by his guest. But is this really journalism? All it said to me was that he had a staff that was good at researching gotcha questions and that he managed to make certain people squirm.

But Russert never turned that kind of scrutiny on Cheney or Bush. And while the biggest story of the past decade happened, Russert never offered any kind of interesting take on it. I never heard anything on his show that deviating from the standard MSM worldview on how the world was run. I never heard Russert talk intelligently about WMDs or torture or stolen elections or any of the real issues of the past decade. His show was primarily about power worship.

And I'm sorry there are readers who think that public figures should be exempted from public criticism in the aftermath of their death. But it seems to me that now is the time to put the record straight, if any. And over-the-top emotional insults don't seem appropriate in any case. This is a news website, not a church.

Tomreedtoon, that's a strange definition of the word.

A person is not considered a 'whore' for doing something he/she doesn't want to do. A person is considered a 'whore' for doing something shameful for money, in particular sex, though the word can be used more loosely. For example, a Shakespearean actor who does soap operas for money could be a whore.

The key here is that whatever is being done is

a) below one's dignity

and

b) pays money

Being reluctant to adhere to basic standards of cleanliness just doesn't enter into the picture.

Joan - Clinton's out of the race. Lots of other things are going on in the world.

I have not seen anything in biology and evolution (a field I have worked in) to convince me that behavior is not largely determined by psychological role-playing, as opposed to anything biological. The usual discussions about "pick-up artists" need to be weighed against the fact that

a) I know few actual pick-up artists in real-life

b) I know as many female pick-up artists as male.

I would hope that any discussion about sexual roles and biology that was purporting to be scientific would do more than bandy about stereotypes without reference to actual scientific methodology. It is easy to generate hypotheses - testing them, especially in questions of psychology, is not as easy.

Quite seriously, why and how did Scalia ever get a reputation as anything more than a hack? The United States is going to "regret" not allowing the President to indefinitely lock up whomever he wishes?

This kind of thinking is appalling. What planet do these people live on? Are they in constant fear? It's really very sad to see.

The closest thing is the penalty shot in soccer, which only rarely results in a score.

I think at least 90% of penalty shots result in scores.

Perhaps you are thinking of free kicks?

Penalties in soccer are highly controversial a lot of the time. But they are not commonplace, like free throws are. But an even easier way for a ref to fix a game is to whistle a star player for two quick fouls. There is so much pushing allowed in the NBA it is easy to find something to justify.

People who say "if the league were crooked, San Antonio would never have won" make as much sense as people who say "if Al Capone were a gangster, every bank would have been robbed".

Being a criminal doesn't make a person omnipotent. Given that we already know that officiating was fixing games (see Donaghy), the question is no longer whether this was going on, but how much it was going on.

And yeah, Stern's denial was classic. He didn't even bother saying that the fix hadn't been in, he just said nobody would believe Donaghy.

Since Jordan's retirement, it has become increasingly clear that David Stern doesn't care about the quality of play in the NBA.

The Lakers got a ton of free throws in Game 3 because they were doing something they didn't do in Game 2 at all: attack the basket. The Celtics got fewer free throws because they settled for jump shots far more often.

But, as for this comment

And if you're going to conjure up an accusation that the NBA fixed games, wouldn't you choose the game everybody remembers for the losing team getting worked?

If you're going to conjure up an accusation that a conspiracy was behind a political assassination, wouldn't you choose to start with JFK?

The officiating in that Lakers-Kings game was so horrendously bad that people had to wonder how any refs could be so incompetent. And when it comes to light that at least one official was on the take, it is logical to think that there may have been more.

NBA officiating is atrocious. But what's worse is that David Stern maintains the fiction that there is no problem. When bad officiating is rampant, it becomes much easier for corruption to insert itself. What's really troublesome about Stern's denials is that it is exactly the same tune he sang before the Donaghy affair came to light.

MJ was known for pushing people hard, but I don't recall him doing that with Scottie Pippen. Also, he didn't do that to the team as a whole.

The media is continuing to try to push the Kobe-as-Jordan's-successor bit. It should be abandoned. Jordan was so good that, in 1986, when he was only 23, Larry Bird referred to him as "God". Kobe's almost 30 and he's way behind on the "clearly being the best player in the NBA" metric. I don't see a huge gap between him and LeBron. LeBron was at least able to drive to the basket against the Celtics.

Bryant will also never be as popular as Jordan. Being arrested on rape charges will do that. And paying off the accuser does not really serve as exoneration.