5 ms·

RIP, Tim Russert

28 points by terpua 18y ago

terpua 18y ago
He was the best interviewer I have seen. Fair to both sides of the aisle. Will miss MTP without him. http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/06/23/080623ta_talk_remnick http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/06/23/080623ta_talk_remni...
- mynameishere 18y ago
  Good example of a harmless comment that got downmodded hard.
  - Darmani 18y ago
    I'm not so certain that comment's harmless. I'd honestly say that comment is not too far from comments such as "Me too" and "I agree," a type of comment that contains no substance and spreads the message that it is acceptable to write comments with no substance. I would really like to see some insights or examples of what makes Tim especially fair or a great interviewer. :)
    - mynameishere 18y ago
      Well, it's just an obit entry. "In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath." - SJ
      - Darmani 18y ago
        Death is the best time to reflect upon life. As an interesting sidenote, I didn't know who SJ was, so I googled that quote. Your comment here was the first result out of 850
LPTS 18y ago
I know the american tradition is to not speak ill of the dead. But I've never been one for tradition, so... One less fevered ego tainting our collective unconscious. Good. Fair to both sides of the aisle?. Which is why Dick Cheney preferred to go on his show because of the message control. And why he allowed people to put things off the record after interviews. Let's not pretend he represented journalism or that the times he did call people on things, it wasn't just picking on sacrificial lambs so he could maintain a thin veneer of responsibility behind which he could hide the powerful people he ultimately protected. He was fair to everyone except the american people. He's dead now. He hurt America. Millions of people die every day. I can't believe there aren't hundreds of thousands of them more worth this outpouring of grief. My condolences to his family, and to the powerful elites who depended on his show to control the way they distributed propaganda to the masses.
- crescendo 18y ago
  One less fevered ego tainting our collective unconscious. Good. This is really a pretty despicable attitude no matter where you're from. It's good that a person died because his ego won't trouble you any more? Are you serious? I saw some comments like this on reddit, but I didn't think for a million years I'd see it here.
  - LPTS 18y ago
    Millions of people die each day. This in itself is neither good or bad. Death is not some horrible thing. It's not good because he won't trouble me. It's good because all the thousands of people Americans are basically torturing overseas have one less journalist giving the politicians responsible cover. It's good because the politicians like Cheney no longer can obscure shit like this http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=2444 http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=2444 by gaining respectability on his show. Which means that Americans will be slightly less likely to allow this outrageous abuse and torture to continue. Yeah. I'm glad Tim Russerts dead. I was elated all day. Why? Because I think torturing people is wrong and I think Tim Russert helped people who directly ordered that torture deceive the American people. I think he helped deceive america intentionally (I do not think he knew about the torture, though). To me, the thought that there is one less gasbag fooling my fellow americans into thinking goons like Cheney who order systematic torture are on the up and up is a great thing. I guess this makes me the one with the despicable attitude and questionable moral fabric. Go look at those pictures. Tim Russert helped the politicians who ordered that to happen. Now that he's dead, he can't do that. Yeah, I'm glad he's dead. Condolences to his family, though. And I saw the disgusting spectacle of people who's shock at being confronted with death made then lionize this person who was quite flawed everywhere. I didn't expect to find that here.
  - Prrometheus 18y ago
    You would not have liked to see me when the death of Jerry Falwell was announced. Although it wasn't selfishness that prompted my glee on that occasion, rather that many other people would be spared pain from his blustering hatred and undue influence. A few graves in this world deserve to be danced on. Granted, Russert doesn't strike me as one that deserves it.
Prrometheus 18y ago
Not Hacker News. Sorry, but I already found out that Russert was dead from a dozen different news sources. Also, he was never "fair" to both sides of the aisle. Sometimes he was in attack mode, sometimes he would switch to kid-gloves mode (I remember him giving a particularly easy interview to Mike Huckabee on the eve of the Iowa primary, and that is a man with a LOT of "interesting" issues to talk about). Maybe he was special in the world of journalists because he actually had an attack mode. But let him be praised for what he was, and not an idealized vision of what he never was.
- danteembermage 18y ago
  "But let him be praised for what he was, and not an idealized vision of what he never was." I just read Speaker for the Dead again--I hadn't picked it back up again since high school--and I think Card argues we kill the dead all over again when we idealize them instead of confronting who they really were. An extreme thesis, but one worth considering.
- terpua 18y ago
  We all have our opinions. We just happen to disagree. At least you gave yours.
  - iamdave 18y ago
    I had to vote this back up because it looks like the trend of downvoting someone who disagrees is still going on.
    - designtofly 18y ago
      No. It was downvoted because it contributed nothing to the discussion. Saying 'thanks for your opposing view' is as useless as saying 'I agree' and nothing else.
- dfranke 18y ago
  I don't have a problem with this one. It's mainstream news, but it's mainstream news that's actually relevant to people, as opposed to, say, celebrity gossip. It has no special relevance to hackers, but it's still just as relevant to us as to anyone else. Stories of this magnitude come up in the media maybe once a month. Having a single post about them show up on news.yc isn't going to drown out the signal.
niels_olson 18y ago
I think Hacker News just jumped the shark.

28 points by terpua 18y ago

He was the best interviewer I have seen. Fair to both sides of the aisle. Will miss MTP without him. http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/06/23/080623ta_talk_remnick http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/06/23/080623ta_talk_remni...

mynameishere 18y ago
Good example of a harmless comment that got downmodded hard.
- Darmani 18y ago
  I'm not so certain that comment's harmless. I'd honestly say that comment is not too far from comments such as "Me too" and "I agree," a type of comment that contains no substance and spreads the message that it is acceptable to write comments with no substance. I would really like to see some insights or examples of what makes Tim especially fair or a great interviewer. :)
  - mynameishere 18y ago
    Well, it's just an obit entry. "In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath." - SJ
    - Darmani 18y ago
      Death is the best time to reflect upon life. As an interesting sidenote, I didn't know who SJ was, so I googled that quote. Your comment here was the first result out of 850

LPTS 18y ago

I know the american tradition is to not speak ill of the dead. But I've never been one for tradition, so... One less fevered ego tainting our collective unconscious. Good. Fair to both sides of the aisle?. Which is why Dick Cheney preferred to go on his show because of the message control. And why he allowed people to put things off the record after interviews. Let's not pretend he represented journalism or that the times he did call people on things, it wasn't just picking on sacrificial lambs so he could maintain a thin veneer of responsibility behind which he could hide the powerful people he ultimately protected. He was fair to everyone except the american people. He's dead now. He hurt America. Millions of people die every day. I can't believe there aren't hundreds of thousands of them more worth this outpouring of grief. My condolences to his family, and to the powerful elites who depended on his show to control the way they distributed propaganda to the masses.

crescendo 18y ago
One less fevered ego tainting our collective unconscious. Good. This is really a pretty despicable attitude no matter where you're from. It's good that a person died because his ego won't trouble you any more? Are you serious? I saw some comments like this on reddit, but I didn't think for a million years I'd see it here.
- LPTS 18y ago
  Millions of people die each day. This in itself is neither good or bad. Death is not some horrible thing. It's not good because he won't trouble me. It's good because all the thousands of people Americans are basically torturing overseas have one less journalist giving the politicians responsible cover. It's good because the politicians like Cheney no longer can obscure shit like this http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=2444 http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=2444 by gaining respectability on his show. Which means that Americans will be slightly less likely to allow this outrageous abuse and torture to continue. Yeah. I'm glad Tim Russerts dead. I was elated all day. Why? Because I think torturing people is wrong and I think Tim Russert helped people who directly ordered that torture deceive the American people. I think he helped deceive america intentionally (I do not think he knew about the torture, though). To me, the thought that there is one less gasbag fooling my fellow americans into thinking goons like Cheney who order systematic torture are on the up and up is a great thing. I guess this makes me the one with the despicable attitude and questionable moral fabric. Go look at those pictures. Tim Russert helped the politicians who ordered that to happen. Now that he's dead, he can't do that. Yeah, I'm glad he's dead. Condolences to his family, though. And I saw the disgusting spectacle of people who's shock at being confronted with death made then lionize this person who was quite flawed everywhere. I didn't expect to find that here.
- Prrometheus 18y ago
  You would not have liked to see me when the death of Jerry Falwell was announced. Although it wasn't selfishness that prompted my glee on that occasion, rather that many other people would be spared pain from his blustering hatred and undue influence. A few graves in this world deserve to be danced on. Granted, Russert doesn't strike me as one that deserves it.

Prrometheus 18y ago

Not Hacker News. Sorry, but I already found out that Russert was dead from a dozen different news sources. Also, he was never "fair" to both sides of the aisle. Sometimes he was in attack mode, sometimes he would switch to kid-gloves mode (I remember him giving a particularly easy interview to Mike Huckabee on the eve of the Iowa primary, and that is a man with a LOT of "interesting" issues to talk about). Maybe he was special in the world of journalists because he actually had an attack mode. But let him be praised for what he was, and not an idealized vision of what he never was.

danteembermage 18y ago
"But let him be praised for what he was, and not an idealized vision of what he never was." I just read Speaker for the Dead again--I hadn't picked it back up again since high school--and I think Card argues we kill the dead all over again when we idealize them instead of confronting who they really were. An extreme thesis, but one worth considering.
terpua 18y ago
We all have our opinions. We just happen to disagree. At least you gave yours.
- iamdave 18y ago
  I had to vote this back up because it looks like the trend of downvoting someone who disagrees is still going on.
  - designtofly 18y ago
    No. It was downvoted because it contributed nothing to the discussion. Saying 'thanks for your opposing view' is as useless as saying 'I agree' and nothing else.
dfranke 18y ago
I don't have a problem with this one. It's mainstream news, but it's mainstream news that's actually relevant to people, as opposed to, say, celebrity gossip. It has no special relevance to hackers, but it's still just as relevant to us as to anyone else. Stories of this magnitude come up in the media maybe once a month. Having a single post about them show up on news.yc isn't going to drown out the signal.

niels_olson 18y ago

I think Hacker News just jumped the shark.