Huffington v. Russert

I predict the gentlelady from California has the upper hand. Check THIS page out for all things Timmy from the Huffington Post. Arianna has been aces as a Russert/MTP watchdog for close to a year now. Yesterday, she posted THIS about Tim Russert:

Now comes guffaw-inducing word that Russert, Sr. is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at an "Ethics of the Media" conference hosted by Ripon College's Ethical Leadership Program. Oh. My. God. Inviting Tim Russert to keynote a conference on journalistic ethics is like having Jack Abramoff keynote a conference on lobbying reform, Jim Frey lecture on truth in advertising, or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lead High Holy Days services at Temple Beth Israel.

The folks over at NBC didn't take too kindly to her truthiness, so they brought up a 12-year-old false claim about Arianna, a private detective, and Maureen Orth, Russert's wife. The ridiculousness of the claim aside, the real issue seems to be that NBC chose to swiftboat Arianna instead of really taking a look at the issue at hand: Tim Russert and his lack of ethics. Swiftboating is American political jargon for an ad hominem attack against a public figure, coordinated by an independent or pseudo-independent group, usually resulting in a benefit to an established political force. Specifically, this form of attack is controversial, easily repeatable, and difficult to verify or disprove because it is generally based on personal feelings or recollections.

Media Matters has a pretty comprehensive Russert-watch page up as well.