By all accounts Russert was a nice guy who apparently never had a bad word to say about anyone.

I'm sure he was also a loving family man and his death must still be as painful to them today as it was a year ago.

But, these are the qualities we seek in a father and a husband, not a journalist whose job it is to extract the truth from politicians talking out of the side of their mouths.

He failed miserably at that over and over again. Russ didn't want to offend those politicians at any cost, so that cost, shared by Russert and many others, was the death of thousands of young, dedicated young men.

I knew the Iraqi war was a sham from the beginning and I am a lowly salesman without a college degree.

How much more of an education did Russ and the rest of the MSM have than I, and why was it more important to them not to not ruffle feathers so this war could happen at an obscene cost of dead young Republicans and Democrats.

Russ sat there week after week reading the talking points that his guests spit out on some other show, or in some other interview, as if it were some secret wiretap that only he had access to, but now he was about to burn them with their own words.

Either Russ wasn't real smart, or he didn't watch his own show that often. Because as his guests were re-wording their old answers, he ceased in conducting an interview, he was now giving them another forum, once again, to lie about the war.

Meet the Press is a tradition and dare I say, it continues unabatedly with David Gregory as the host.

If you have watched Gregory, you certainly have not seen the reporter that appears at the 3:33 mark of the YouTube clip below, as he takes Scott McClellan down a dark lonely alley without Jeff Gannon to save him.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R-0wOc6a_g&feature=related

Now, if Gregory dares to challenge anyone, he loses that all-important access. So, we will continue to get bullshit answers like, "I have a wide stance," "She was not an undercover agent."

Somehow, the torture, the lies, and the disgrace that is Dick Cheney didn't create the rage in me it probably deserved.

That seething anger was reserved for the video of that smarmy, cold-hearted, pseudo-Christian President Bush, looking under his desk at the White House Correspondents Dinner, joking about those missing Weapons of Mass Destruction.

"They must be here somewhere," he giggled, along with a few hundred spineless, White House lapdogs as "The Decider" looked behind curtains and under his desk.

I always wondered how that tape would go over if I took it over to the Pryor home in Moorestown, N.J.

Mr. Bush might not consider a mortar a WMD, but Major John P. Pryor of Moorestown, N.J. died on Christmas Day at age 42, when a mortar hit his living quarters near Mosul. To Major Pryor's family, it was indeed a weapon of mass destruction.

But, don't worry, Mr. Bush, we aren't going to have any "Truth Commission" look at what you did to make sure you and your friends followed the law.

You were just nice guys, doing what you were told, you and Tim.