The Next Generation of Media Stupidity

Luke Russert is making a strong push to edge out Jonah Goldberg, Cokie Roberts and Julie Foudy as dumbest person allowed on television: (via Digby)

Shuster: What sort of efforts are Harry Reid and his cohorts making toward Russ Feingold?

Lil' Luke: (smirking) You remember last week or ten days ago that Mary Landrieu was able to get 300 million dollars for Hurricane Katrina down in Lousisiana? Expect Russ Feingold to possibly get something, a nice little present, an early Christmas present from Harry Reid here, possibly that could go to other members.

Obviously David, you know it's politics. These Senators want what's best for their home states, if they can hold up a major bill like this and get something in return, they just might do it.

But I think the people who are interesting to look at here are one, is Mr Feingold here, as you mentioned because he is the apotheosis of the progressive wing, but also folks like Blanche Lincoln, like Mary Landrieu, who are very fiscally conservative. If this is very expensive, they might not be on board. We also have to look at Mr Lieberman who has given a little bit of a hint that he might like this idea, but he is very much opposed to the trigger and some folks are looking at Olympia Snowe to possibly give the Democrats that buffer, that one vote buffer they could lose somebody. But she's not signed on to this 100% at all either David so there's still a lot of jockeying to be done.

It's politics at its best, as we like to say at MSNBC.

Shuster: Thanks as always, (laughter) we'll be watching the horse trading as it develops.

Lil Luke: Hahahahaha! Take care David.

Russ Feingold potentially opposing the bill on it's merits = Mary Landreu being an unprincipled whore. Clearly the same thing. IT'S LIKE WE SAY AT MSNBC, IT'S ALL POLITICS! HAHAHAHA!!!! POLITICS!

The traditional way to preform crappy journalism is to have a basic idea of what's going on, and then craft a story using cliches and baseless assumptions. The beauty of Luke Russert is that he skips the step of having even the most tenuous grip of what's going on, and bases the entire story on buzz words and cliches.

To be fair, this is exactly the type of reporting you'd expect when you give a not so bright frat boy a microphone and unlimited access, but thanks to the last name Russert, it's good to see that he qualifies as a political analyst for NBC.