video 7 of 9 here (30 second NBC "Revelations" commercial at the beginning)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032633/?ta=yThese are all close quotes
Lauer: He IS the first President to ever go to the funeral of a Pope (hmm who was the first to welcome a Pope to the White House?) so this is historically significant isn't it?
Russert:It IS historically significant....(he mentioned the attacks on Al Smith "digging a tunnel to the Vatican?" and JFK for being Catholic (hmm wonder who did that?).....this President is comfortable mixing religion and politics...White Middle Class Protestants used to be born Democrat and baptized Catholic...Bush won the Catholic vote in both 2000 and 2004
-Here was the real kicker-Lauer:Can we FINALLY put this whole Carter controversy to bed-cites Boston Globe op/ed (I think)- "Is that the end of the story?"
Russert:"I put it down as a big misunderstanding....we won't know what really happened to until the memoirs are written" -Really whose memoir?
At the end the showed a poll in which everyone associated with the Schiavo thing (W, Congress, media) had > 50% disapproval over what happened there.
Russert actually said that the media was taking the blame on it (No one else?)
Lauer has a bit surprised.
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They were SO close to grabbing that brass ring too.