David Gregory asked hard questions of the Bush administration after the Bush administration expressed disliking of him. Until then, he was all deference.

I have never understood the veneration of Tim Russert. He was competent, but he was also amazingly deferential of the figures he had on his show. He very rarely insisted, very rarely debunked, and generally followed the rest of the mainstream news in facts. Nothing about his show measured up, quite, to what one routinely gets on BBC World Service.

As you say, Glenn, David Gregory seems an apt replacement. The same self-infatuation seems present as with Russert, and we haven't lost a hard hitting questioner and replaced him with a shoe shine boy. We have more or less gone from one inflated balloon to another. The world shrugs and tunes the knob.

All this reminded me of the interview Rosemary Church conducted back during the 2006 Lebanon boondoggle. Very rarely do you see these kinds of pointed questions about Israel's actions in the MSM. And, yes, CAMERA reported on this villainy straight away. Link at sig.

Thanks Glenn. Russert was an establishment lacky and GOP enabler, and Gregory continues that appalling tradition. And, yes, the dance symbolizes the media's role in Washington during the George W. Bush years. Pathetic. But of course NBC's news operation was and continues to be pathetic. Any network that makes Brian Williams its face to the world doesn't deserve to be taken seriously.

He/she comes up with a pithy point about 1 post out of every 1,000.
— Paul in KY

Or, about once a week.

But you have to be quick to catch it before it goes to that big dev/null in the sky.

A law professor is presumably not ignorant and presumably not stupid, and therefore presumably dishonest if pretending not to know the difference between jus ad bellum (justifiable war) and jus in bello (just action in war).

Lets get real.

If you are gonna have a weekly news show that absolutely relies on being able to line up important people to come dicuss the issues of the day, then you are gonna need to walk a pretty fine line between being a good cop and a bad cop. As that voice in Fields of Dream might put it, "If you abuse them, they will not come." So you need to be hard hitting and fair--not an easy task. And especially if you are asking them to tell people they are liars and cheats and criminals.

Perhaps it is the medium of tv itself that is to blame. A show needs important guests to thrive; the guests need to get something out of appearing and if it is abuse, they will not appear. (Honestly, doesn't it seem that the Glenn and Joan I see on the tv show circuit seem like lions whose claws are much duller than they are here at Salon.com?)

By the way, how about some criticism of Rachel and Keith and the MSNBC lineup. Talk about softball interviews. Anytime someone from the left is on, its all ooze and smiles. Maybe that will change when the Obama folks and the Dems in Congress (who are pretty much the only game in town now) start showing up. We will see.

New Wog up

Link @ sig

-- Jebbie

Gregory's 'promotion' to shill coordinator of Meet the Press reminds me of some of the awards Bush gave out to some of the total failures of his cabinet and administration. Gregory makes a complete ass of himself bouncing around with one of the worst scums to ever inhabit the earth and he gets the prized reward of the Meet the Press seat.

Thank you WinSmith for that wonderful assemblage of strawmen and half truths. It is of course the Palestinians' fault if they get in the way of Israeli bombs. Why can't they simply do what they are told? Why do they persist in petulantly getting themselves killed? The Israelis want peace and what says peace better then an economic blockade at the same time as a truce? But what I really liked was your assertion:

Nearly every national border on this planet came about through military conflict. Why is Israel different than all other countries?

This is so true. The Japanese and Germans have been unfairly vilified for the perfectly justifiable goal of establishing their national borders. Perhaps the Germans went a little overboard in thinking that those borders should include all of Europe, and the Japanese all of Asia. But these are quibbles. It is the principle that counts. The end justifies the means, and a country can use military force when it chooses to for whatever reason it chooses to no, matter how many people get killed in the process. Thank you for clarifying this for me and putting Israel in the company of other great states, like 1930s Germany and Japan.

New Wog up

Link @ sig

One of the good things about growing old is that you get to re-read some of the classics as your kids go through college.

My son gave me John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty" as a holiday gift. Read it last night and came across this gem apropos Mr. Gregory's ignorance:

""The time, it is to be hoped, is gone by, when any defense would be necessary of the "liberty of the press" as one of the the securities against corrupt or tyrannical government."

<>Paul Daniel Ash could probably list them all

I admit to a certain fascination with this commenter. He's got a certain wit, which he seldom displays around here anymore... it's almost as if he's set a quota for comments deleted and just spits out the most randomly offensive thing he can say at any given moment. But a lot of the screen names - Merry Christmas From Hell, The Screaming Steam Hammers of Hate e.g. - show a creative, almost poetic mind. Albeit one drenched in vitriol.

To get some idea of his motivation, this comment is probably the most telling:

http://tinyurl.com/59ur9o

One gets one's emotional stimulation where one can, I suppose.