Over at MainWebReport, Lance Dutson battles the urge to purge after watching MSNBC’s tragically incomplete coverage of Russert’s testimony which has so far glossed over or ignored compelling reasons to doubt his account.
Eric Brewer at BTC News chas

By the way, if Russert is lying, then what about Judith Miller (a reporter who was sympathetic to the adminsitration and a favorite source for their leaks)? She testified that she heard about Plame from Mr. Libby. If Mr. Libby did not lie to the Grand Jury, he must have been poorly prepared by his lawyers. Ouch!!

I’d think that as a journalist a motion to quash would be a knee jerk reaction to receiving a subpoena and that’s how it sounds Timmeh played it. Look at Mitchell and Ackerman (??) who’ve been subpoenaed by the defense, they’re both fighting it.

Arianna and Jane have long had it out for Timmeh, I think in this case their — not improper, but — misapplied bias is clouding their thinking.

It seems likely that Russert failed to tell his boss that he spoke with the FBI either before or after speaking with them. At this point Russert has made a serious mistake by making himself part of the story. NBC has every legal ground for firing Russert, but with his TV ratings that will never happen. And Russert calculated correctly that he could get away with this cover-up. Why, because Russert would land on his feet elsewhere, witness what happened with George Will after it was found that he knowingly used stolen campaign documents from the Carter campaign to help prepare Ronald Reagan for an upcoming debate with Carter.

Both Russert and Woodward are tarnished as journalists by this episode but it in no way undercuts Russert’s damning testimony. Hopefully this tarnish will cause others in MSM to reassess what journalism really stands for. They have, after all, been getting failing grades for several years now. It is long past time they look inwardly at the practices that have landed them in such disrespect.

Good trial coverage Eric.

Very good. I just didn’t see this as impeaching Russert’s credibility, at least as regards his testimony. I can easily believe that he would act as he did, because of fear, selfishness, arrogance, complacency, etc.