Tim Russert died of a heart attack. Despite what his big-brand media colleagues said in their fawning obituaries, this was no great loss to journalism.

He never broke an important story, much less an unimportant one. He never did the hard investigative reporting of the kind that changes American history. He asked “acid” questions of political big shots in a television studio and was a millionaire as a result. The answers he received did nothing to change anything. They were for higher ratings and gorging his ego.

Take the Iraq War. In the buildup and the aftermath, it is clear now from published sources and Russert’s testimony at the Scooter Libby trial, that he was in bed with the Bush Administration, sucking up and sucking off, for access, that allowed his show, Meet the Press, to be exploited in building the case for war. Any first year journalist should have seen the conflict of interest, but Russert loved being known as a tough interviewer who scored the big “gotcha” hits.

Tell that to all the U.S. soldiers and innocent Iraqis who are dead, and the $700 billion wasted.

He never put his journalism in service to anything but himself. It wasn’t even journalism. There was nothing solid or lasting to any of it. He uncovered nothing useful to the American people in confronting the corrupt and abject decisions our government makes in our name. He never once challenged the status quo of what market capitalism is doing to the planet. He was all talk all the time. All of multimillion dollar-a-year salary returned not one substantive journalism outcome.

Wow Matt....you're a dick