I was glad when Reagan died

[mudesi]

I'll say that right here and right now. (I believe enough time has passed that I can't be accused of speaking ill of the recently dead, correct?)

Reagan caused more death and suffering for more people than any other single person comparable to him, with the exception of the current president. I didn't feel for his family, either. If that makes me a heartless monster, so be it.

I never paid much attention to Mr. Russert, but if he played his part to help George W. Bush get elected twice, (like the host of other media people who are clearly complicit in that), well then it's clear that his death won't be bringing much sorrow to a whole group of people here, and those are their feelings, and ought they not to be respected as much as those who disagree?

I don't expect to feel anything when Limbaugh or Hannity or Coulter die except "good riddance". Was Russert as bad as any of them? I don't know. Like I said, I didn't really pay attention to Russert.

But if I may ask: Does it make me horrible to know that when Rush Limbaugh dies, I will be glad? I can't very well change my feelings about the man, and why should I? He obviously doesn't care about the enormous damage he has done and is doing to the country, he doesn't care about the pain he causes others, so why should I work on being compassionate towards his apparent humanity?

If people are "grave dancing", they have a reason. Let them. When did it become wrong to have feelings of relief, indifference, and yes, even joy at the death of a person? Who are you people who seem to think that the only emotion one is "allowed" to have is sorrow or compassion? Who are you people who think those who feel glad at the death of someone should repress those feelings out of "respect"? Respect for whom? You?

I wonder if the hand wringing is nothing more than a kind of mental masturbation for some. The is the Internet, not the funeral home. When people you don't personally know die, the most probable emotion you'll have is no emotion at all. I seriously doubt anybody complaining about the grave dancing actually cared about Tim Russert. I doubt they're sitting at home weeping over his death right now, I doubt they're even thinking about it at all.

But wow, do they sure love telling others on the Internet to stop being disrespectful of a man they didn't know personally, completely disregarding the feelings of those who, for whatever reason, had issues with the man. Maybe the people "grave dancing" were personally harmed by Russert's complicity in George W. Bush's war crimes, if indeed he was complicit. Do any of you stop to consider such a possibility?

Maybe the "grave dancer" has a son or a daughter in Iraq. Maybe the "grave dancer" lost a home in New Orleans after Katrina. Maybe the "grave dancer" has gone bankrupt because he has no health insurance, while the GOP continues to push policies that benefit only the health insurance industry.

If Russert was a part of that faction of the mainstream media that has allowed the lies of the corporate fascists to go unchallenged, then the people happy over his death have a legitimate emotion to express. If you don't share that emotion, great. Give yourself a pat on the back. Others are going to have different feelings than you. Perhaps you should accept that.

[givemebackmycountry]

1. If nothing else....

You get the "most provocative" award for a thread title.

But, I pretty much see your point.

[GoneOffShore]

2. Thank you for stomping on the concern trolls.

[ananda]

3. I can't see the point of being glad.

Why.. because the right bastards always seem
to live past their damage days. They die
when it doesn't much fucking matter.

Reagan was old and had Alzheimers.
Bush is still going strong, and if he died
tomorrow it wouldn't change much of
anything.

Russert will just be replaced with another
rightwing shill.

What we need is a huge energetic metanoia
in the collective mind of America. Until
that happens, one bad muthafukka will just
be replaced by anotha.

[LordJFT]

22. right-wing shill? didn't Russert work in two democratic administrations?

[Gabi Hayes]

24. two word answer:

Joe Lieberman

[LordJFT]

27. ok, but do you have evidence that he is a right-wing shill?

I'm not being facetious, I just don't watch NBC enough to know enough about him. I try to stay away from the MSM in general.

[greenbriar]

28. how about in 2000 when he had a bush button pinned on his jacket

and after he shook Gores hand, he fliped his lapel to show bush the button?

[Riddler]

4. Probably no different than I felt when Jerry Falwell left this earth.

I had no use for Reagan, and the only thing that I'm sorry for is that he, as well as Falwell, left this world many, many years too late. Whenever that day comes for anyone in the Bush or Cheney families, I will have the same feelings that the day came decades too late, and wonder how many lives and how much suffering could have been prevented had these wastes of humanity never existed. As for Russert, I don't recall ever seeing too many threads that were complimentary towards him on any liberal board, so I have to wonder about his canonization to sainthood on these boards now.

[greyghost]

7. AMEN

[Faygo Kid]

5. Reagan's death was irrelevant. He was a vegetable at that point. Russert's is different.

I disagree in that I am not "happy" about his death, but the hyperbole about him is overblown. He was no Cronkite or Murrow. I am bitter (yes, bitter) about two things about him in particular:

1. He loved Limbaugh. He did two interviews with Limbaugh, and never challenged Rush on his hate and ignorance even one time. He actually took that uneducated dolt seriously. Limbaugh has done more harm to this country than any other media figure in history. Tim had a chance to challenge him, and he blew it, both times. It was sickening and unforgivable treacle.

2. The war in Iraq. Tim allowed Meet the Press to be used as THE primary television vehicle for selling the fraudulent war. Again, unforgivable. The NY Times and Washington Post played the same role in print (the Post continues as number 1 cheerleader). When Cheney or Rice wanted to talk about "mushroom clouds" without challenge, they knew who to call: Tim Russert.

I do not cheer his death. I question his legacy.

[Benhurst]

10. Amen!

[calimary]

23. Well put! I do not cheer his death, either. But I absolutely question his legacy.

There will be no canonization from me.

You forgot #3: Tim Russert NEVER saw a Monica Lewinsky story he didn't love, and race to put on the air and wallow in for hour after hour. As with the run-up to the war, he always made lots of room for the other cheerleaders and pushers of the story, and very little for anyone trying to advance the opposing view. People who wanted to obsess on Clinton's penis always had a friend on "Meet the Press," LONG after the public had been indicating we were fed up, thought the whole impeachment affair was completely bogus, and supported Bill Clinton by solid and unspinnable majorities.

He, like so many others, was PERFECTLY AND UNIQUELY POSITIONED to cut through the crap and make sure the truth still got plenty of exposure. And he didn't.

Besides, a man who hid a bush/cheney button inside his coat to flash at george w. bush conspiratorially in a meet-n-greet moment SHOULD have his objectivity questioned - and questioned SEVERELY.

Tim Russert was a great disappointment to me, especially with the megaphone he had as Washington Bureau Chief, Senior Vice President of NBC News, and host of "Meet the Press." I believe all those soundbites where you see cheney snarling out of the side of his mouth about how "in fact," we'll be greeted as liberators, and contradicta with her "mushroom CLOUD" scary-stories - were "Meet the Press" moments.

[Donnachaidh]

6. BINGO!

"the hand wringing is nothing more than a kind of mental masturbation for some".

The "manners monitors" are having a grand time atop their high horses. :shrug:

[bluestateguy]

8. All right, fine

But many of the same people who are grave dancing now are the same people that expressed blood-curdling outrage when right-wingers grave danced over Paul Wellstone or expressed joy at Ted Kennedy having terminal cancer.

If you want to grave dance, fine, but you then forfeit your right to get angry when people on the other side behave the same way when our heroes die.

[treestar]

17. What anger?

If people are angry at freeper grave-dancing on liberal deaths, it doesn't get expressed on DU nearly as much as they finger wagging about how respectful DUers should be when RWers and their helpers die.

Sort of like how respectful we should be of McSame's military service when they were so disrespectful of Kerry's.

You've got to wonder about that.

[Historic NY]

9. He is still dead, right?

[Benhurst]

11. We won't know for sure until Monday.

[ObamaTime2008]

12. I did a happy dance

when Reagan died. Me bad but that's what I did spontaneously.

[terrya]

13. I'll be glad when Fred Phelps dies

I have to be honest about that. I'll celebrate that motherfucker's death.

I'm not happy about Tim Russert's death, though.

[ThatsMyBarack]

14. GET THIS!!! On another board...

I am a member of (classic Chicago TV), there is a classic Reagan ads for the '84 election. Some members call him:

Best president of the second half of the 20th century, hands down.

One of the best men in the history of this country.

In response to a Mondale '84 ad:

Reagan knew what he was doing. These two sure didn't.

Let's see, Reagan helped win the Cold War, enought said.

:wtf: & :puke: TIMES TEN!

[cali]

15. blah, blah, blah

really don't give a shit. I don't believe everything I feel- or you feel- needs to be said. There's just a shitload of stuff I won't ever say. it's utterly unneccesary to do so.

[hedgehog]

16. More evidence that educational standards have gone downhill..........

John Donne
Meditation 17
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee..."

[CODemocrat]

18. Raygun.....

was a senile, ignorant man.

Dead? speak nice? come on........Jeebus would agree, Raygun was a Moron.

Pleeze

[ThatsMyBarack]

19. Well...uh... well, well, well....uh

Nufsed.

[Disturbed]

20. I wasn't glad when Raygun died.

I knew there would be 24/7 coverage & ad nauseum accolades. TV in my home was only on to view movies for about a week. Same thing now.

[earth mom]

21. The judgment I'm seeing around DU about this is ridiculous. Ever see the movie "A Christmas Carol"?

That movie is a great lesson about what happens when a person screws people over and how they will be remembered in the end.

The extent that the rethuglicans and their corporate media supporters like Russert have screwed over and hurt so many people is of mammoth proportions!

That some people would expect a different reaction when there has been so much damage done, so many lives lost because of the rethuglican machine, is absolutely ridiculous.

[LanternWaste]

25. I imagine it's just as bad as the ever-so cool,

"I wonder if the hand wringing is nothing more than a kind of mental masturbation for some."

I imagine it's just as bad as the ever-so cool, "symapathy for the dead is reserved only for those with whom I politically agree with" crowd.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

26. Rhetorically Dancing On Russert's Grave Makes One A Cold Hearted Immature Selfish Fuck That Deserves

no respect.

No if and's or buts about it. They can have their different feelings, but that doesn't exclude them from the labels above. I'm ashamed of any fellow democrats that would express such sentiments towards him. That's not what we're about and it's shameful and pathetic to see.

[riderinthestorm]

29. Being Bushco's chief propagandist and war collaborator

makes one a cold hearted immature selfish fuck who deserves to be called out for being an integral part of a killing machine that has ground up 4100 Americans, more than a million Iraqis, leaving a trail of maimed bodies, destruction and war profiteering in it's path.

NOT pointing that out would make me ashamed to be a thinking American (Democrat or Republican) who retains some critical thinking skills in the face of an overwhelming propaganda machine that is working overtime to spin Russert into something very different than a deeply flawed human being who sold his soul for money and power.

Frankly, this is what Democratic Underground is about, and even more so what small "d" democrats are about - ensuring that all sides of all issues are discussed and presented.

Russert is the shameful and pathetic one who chose to be complicit with the thugs in the WH.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

30. OMC

You really need to lay off the "standard of what is acceptable" routine. It's a pathetic attempt at control that is not needed or warranted.

[happydreams]

32. I don't give a fuck whether Russert died or not. I don't give a fuck!

and fuck anybody that demands I fucking sit there and express compassion for someone I don't give a fuck about! Fuck it! I've got more important things to do than worry about some fucking Bush backer media whores death.

[karynnj]

31. Aside from the gracelessness in being happy at someone's death, it hurt the Democrats

It was June 2004. Now, had Reagan no died what would have been covered - current issues, which included things like Abu Ghraib that had again become an issue and the Democratic nominee. Instead, we had a month of the American secular equivalent to the canonization of Reagan. Would it then have been a good idea for Kerry to have emphasized his role in investigating Iran/Contra and BCCI. The new saint allowed cocaine into the country??? Kerry needed to get his story, ideas and history out there - and he lost June to Reagan and July to Clinton's selfish decision to release his book then.

As to Russert - he like almost the entire MSM failed us in the run up to war. He also failed us when he kept silent about what he knew on Valerie Plame in October 2004. There may have been some legal issue there, but the American people needed to know the truth before the election. But, over the course of his career he was one of the best we had.