Conyers: It's Checks and Balances, Mr. Russert

Rep. John Conyers takes on Tim Russert

Russert Misled on Iraq Intelligence

Media Matters: "During an interview with Al Franken, Tim Russert objected to Franken's assertion that "[President] Bush and [Vice President Dick] Cheney did explicitly link Iraq to 9-11 on several occasions, especially when speaking to the naïve Russert." In fact, Cheney twice directly linked Iraq to the 9-11 attacks while appearing on Russert's NBC program Meet the Press. Additionally, while Bush "never brought ... up" the purported Iraqi link to 9-11 during a 2004 Meet the Press interview, neither did Russert, who could have asked Bush to explain a letter he sent to Congress shortly after the start of the Iraq war, in which he explicitly linked Iraq to 9-11."

Russert Failed to Note Pentagon's Apparent Role in Swarmer "Hype"

Media Matters: "In an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, Gen. George W. Casey Jr. told Tim Russert that Operation Swarmer -- a heavily publicized U.S.-Iraqi military campaign -- "got a little bit more hype than it really deserved because of the use of the helicopters to get the Iraqi and the coalition forces there," adding, "It might have looked a little more formidable than it actually was." But neither he nor Russert informed viewers about the apparent role of the Department of Defense and the U.S. Army in creating that "hype."

Russert's Bizarre Interview with Peter Pace

Daou Report: "On Meet the Press, Tim Russert gingerly questions Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Pace about the situation in Iraq. Lo and behold, we discover that things are going great and that the reason two-thirds of Americans think it's a mess is because the press simply isn't reporting all the wonderful things happening there. I'm not sure which aspect of this interview is more bizarre: Pace's outlandish claims (he thinks William F. Buckley should wander the streets of Baghdad) or Russert's demeanor."

Media Matters: "On the March 5 broadcast of NBC's Meet the Press, host Tim Russert failed to challenge several misleading claims made by Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in support of his assertion that the Iraq war is "going very, very well."

A New Kind of "Balance" on Meet the Press

Oliver Willis: "Well, I’m glad someone had the stomach to watch this week’s edition of Meet the Press, because it was frankly beyond ludicrous for a major public affairs program like MTP to blatantly exclude any sort of Democrat from their show (by God, even Joe Lieberman would have been an improvement over the Elephantfest). Even the old Soviet Union would have pretended a little better than that. Who knew GE would make Stalin seem like such a champion of media balance."

Russert Smears Democrats Over Port Fiasco

Media Matters: "NBC's Tim Russert suggested that Democrats have seized on the Dubai Ports World takeover of a British company -- in which Dubai Ports, a company owned by the government of Dubai, a member state of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), would assume control of six major U.S. seaports -- in order to build their national security credentials. Russert was able to make this claim by omitting any reference to numerous calls by Democrats in both houses of Congress for increased port security and various pieces of port-security legislation proposed by Democrats that have been, in most instances, opposed by Republicans."

Russert Watch: The Mary Matalin Horror Show

Courtesy of Arianna Huffington.