Why is it so urgent to suddenly start discussing this "truth" the minute one of those very public people dies? Why it this urgent now but wasn't when Russert, for example, was still alive and could perhaps answer the questions, charges, complaints, etc. (and of course that discussion did take place here, over time, anyway).

Who said it wasn't urgent before? Of course it was. It was very urgent in March 2003, for instance. It's urgent now only because the last word on this public figure is being written right now. If something is worth writing an article on Salon, it's worth a critical analysis of the claims therein. If Russert's legacy merits commentary, it merits honest commentary.

Further, if "no one is going to be talking about this in a month" as you insist, why does this fuel this sudden fit of urgency? If no one's gonna be talking about it in a month then it sure wasn't worth talking about at all.

Doesn't follow. No one will be talking about it in a month but the lesson will have been learned: Tim Russert - Tim Russert! - is the gold standard of American journalism. That's dangerous, frankly. It got a million people killed in Iraq, for instance.

As to the "fact" that the discussion is among those who "never even knew" him, that's a pretty big, pretty heavy assumption to make. Assume away.

There are 300 million people in this country; how many people do you suppose knew Tim Russert personally? And not just personally, but personally enough to be offended by something I might say because they were such good buddies with Little Russ? The odds are overwhelmingly unlikely that any of us here are good friends with Tim Russert. It would be odd for friends of his to be scouring comment boards on the internet right now, don't you think?

This is not Tim Russert's funeral. It would be absurd for people to watch what they say because someone that knew him might be reading.

Let's be clear about who we are talking about, okay? This is a guy with BLOOD ON HIS HANDS. Maybe not as much as Cheney or Bush or Rumsfeld or Wolfowitz or any number of others, but more than most. Do you understand that a million people are dead in large part because of people like Tim Russert? I'd say that's a bit more important than some abstract concept of propriety that you still have been unable to rationally explain or justify.

For some *rational* defense of the silly "if you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all" mentality that applies for some (unspecified) period after someone drops dead. I'm sure it makes you feel morally superior to decry the lack of decency on the internet and whatnot, but if you want to do so you might also want to take the time to explain what, EXACTLY, is so indecent about pointing out the truth about someone's legacy after they die.

Again, there are only two options, and "waiting" to tell the truth is not one of them. No one will be talking about this in a month. Russert's legacy is either assessed honestly now, or it never is. All of the ninnies on this board insisting that we're being "disrespectful" (to whom, exactly? Do you think Russert cares? Do you think his family is reading this?) are committing themselves to letting the lies about Russert (that he was an excellent journalist, etc.) solidify and become permanently entrenched conventional wisdom, at which point every young journalist will learn the following lesson: if you want to be a great, legendary journalist, you should be like Tim Russert. Which suffice to say is not a good thing for our country.

If you want to defend Russert substantively, fine. You're completely wrong, but at least you are engaging the real issue. More annoying are those who insist it is somehow "improper" or "disrespectful" to have an honest conversation about the legacy of a man who none of us knew personally, who was a public figure, and who (most on the left, anyway, will agree, or would have two days ago) was a key enabler of one of the greatest crimes in human history.

If we can't say anything bad (i.e. anything honest) about Russert because he's dead (and how long does the mourning period last?), would you apply the same rule to Cheney? To Bush? When those two monsters die, will propriety and good manners demand that we refrain from an honest conversation? Russert was a blight on our political landscape, and 9 out of 10 of you would have agreed with that last week. Am I happy he's gone? Not really, because he'll just be replaced by someone just as bad - someone who wants nothing more than to be the next Tim Russert, because golly, what a great man he was.

If you haven't noticed, politics is, like, pretty important nowadays. Some might say it's a matter of life or death. So sorry if Ms. Manners doesn't approve of what some of us have to say. But there are more important things at stake than your delicate sensibilities.