What was Russert Thinking?

When we saw Tom Delay on Meet the Press, we couldn't believe our eyes. But Doug Thompson at Capitol Hill Blue says it best:

I'm trying, and failing, to understand why Meet the Press gave an indicted former member of Congress, a corrupt politician who resigned in disgrace, a forum upon which to espouse hate and division Sunday as President George W. Bush's illegal and immoral Iraq war enters its fifth year.

Is Tim Russert so desperate for controversy that he has to book Tom DeLay, easily one of the most criminal political hacks in Washington, on the top-rated Sunday news talk show and let him call war protestors unpatriotic and claim that anyone who wants to end the Iraq war is "aiding and abetting the enemy?"

DeLay is political vermin, one step away from a jail cell for influence peddling and taking bribes and, yet, there he was on Meet the Press being treated with deference by lap-dog Russert.

Instead of pretending to any standard of journalism or decency, Russert let DeLay expound on why he thinks those who protest war are not patriots.