Russert, Tim
<p>this town</p>
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e <b>main flaw of Toobin's estimable</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"><b> </b></span><i><b>A Vast Conspiracy</b></i><span class="Apple-converted-space"><b> </b></span><b>was its rickety thesis that the impeachment was about the takeover of politics by legal stratagems.</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"><b> </b></span><i><b>The Clinton Wars</b></i><span class="Apple-converted-space"><b> </b></span><b>more accurately locates not "law" (which was always a smokescreen) but rather a culture war at the heart of the saga</b>.</p>
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fooled</p>
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Too many journalists--Susan Schmidt, Tim Russert, Jackie Judd of ABC--remained captive to the Republicans' script. (Russert, Blumenthal suggests, once even lied to protect Starr. After attributing a story to Starr's office at a moment when Starr was under fire for leaking, Russert publicly insisted that he had ascribed his tip to "congressional" sources.) Perhaps these reporters had become too dependent on their right-wing sources. Maybe they had grown convinced of Clinton's arrant immorality. Most likely, they simply lacked the nimbleness of mind to see the issue in its broader context; superficiality and groupthink remain the cardinal sins of press corps, especially television reporters. Yet in the end these journalists were left marooned with their sources on a rock of Clinton-hating long after the public had repaired to higher ground.</p>
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<a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0306.greenberg.html">http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0306.greenberg.html</a>
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