The hard questions aren't asked and if they are, you either get complete bullshit or you get offense. Take for example Stewart's lampooning of Zel Miller (sp?), the democratic senator that delivered the keynote address at the RNC. When interviewed by Russert, Miller took such offense to moving away from the republican talking points, or even questioning his use of metaphor and asking what it referred to, that he challenged Russert to a duel and stormed off the set.
In a weak defense of Zell Miller, from what I've heard the media and the Democratic Party both attack him for not 'fitting in'. Yes, I've seen some of the other footage of him besides the RNC speech, and yes, he's batshit insane, but I don't really think that gives anyone the right to attack him for going against the party's grain (er... Wasn't talking about you. Just people in general.).
When Russert was asking that question, it was pretty obvious that the 'sound byte' of the evening was now 'he's going to protect this country with spitballs'. And I would imagine Zell has had to deal with the media doing things like that for a long time. Not to mention he was already pissed off from making the speech.
If you spoke for however long on he did about how you felt the challenging presidential candidate wasn't fit to command the military, and you walked off stage and the first question asked of you was a stupid question that made it sound like Russert was either trying to take him out of context, trying to promote a sound byte, or just being an idiot (I mean seriously, 'Do you really think that John Kerry would protect the country using spitballs?' that's real journalism right there, folks).... I would imagine you'd be a bit angry, too.
Russert's question wasn't a 'hard question'. It was the first of a series of bashings on Zell Miller over the next week until the next 'in' thing to bash came up.
A 'hard question', if Russert had good fact checkers, would have been 'Mr. Miller, you mentioned Senator Kerry voted down X, Y, and Z weapons, but what about his voting on A, B, and C?' (I don't have any info right now on his voting record, nor do I feel like looking it up, but I think I read someplace that Kerry has supported a few weapons for the military in recent years).
Again, I don't really want to go into Zell and whether people like him or not (I did that night, just because it seemed like he actually had something to say, and didn't sugarcoat it. Of course over the following days I saw all the footage of him being eccentric, so that dulled my feelings for him a bit), but I did feel that he deserved defending for that comment.
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In a weak defense of Zell Miller, from what I've heard the media and the Democratic Party both attack him for not 'fitting in'. Yes, I've seen some of the other footage of him besides the RNC speech, and yes, he's batshit insane, but I don't really think that gives anyone the right to attack him for going against the party's grain (er... Wasn't talking about you. Just people in general.).
When Russert was asking that question, it was pretty obvious that the 'sound byte' of the evening was now 'he's going to protect this country with spitballs'. And I would imagine Zell has had to deal with the media doing things like that for a long time. Not to mention he was already pissed off from making the speech.
If you spoke for however long on he did about how you felt the challenging presidential candidate wasn't fit to command the military, and you walked off stage and the first question asked of you was a stupid question that made it sound like Russert was either trying to take him out of context, trying to promote a sound byte, or just being an idiot (I mean seriously, 'Do you really think that John Kerry would protect the country using spitballs?' that's real journalism right there, folks).... I would imagine you'd be a bit angry, too.
Russert's question wasn't a 'hard question'. It was the first of a series of bashings on Zell Miller over the next week until the next 'in' thing to bash came up.
A 'hard question', if Russert had good fact checkers, would have been 'Mr. Miller, you mentioned Senator Kerry voted down X, Y, and Z weapons, but what about his voting on A, B, and C?' (I don't have any info right now on his voting record, nor do I feel like looking it up, but I think I read someplace that Kerry has supported a few weapons for the military in recent years).
Again, I don't really want to go into Zell and whether people like him or not (I did that night, just because it seemed like he actually had something to say, and didn't sugarcoat it. Of course over the following days I saw all the footage of him being eccentric, so that dulled my feelings for him a bit), but I did feel that he deserved defending for that comment.
"Percussionist? You know, they have machines that can do that now."
Doesn't aluminum cool better?