It seems like Tim Russert got a lot more 24/7 love than poor Walter has received. I know that others here picked up on this, too. This seems really incorrect to me. Just wrong.

Being of the progressive variety, I was sorry for Russert and his family, but Russert's legacy, in my mind, is forever draped with his facilitating George W. Bush and Dick Cheney's lying us into invading Iraq. I give Russert only this credit: he wasn't a White House stenographer like Judy Miller was with her direct feed propaganda into the ink at the New York Times.

Possibly Russert, safe and a star there at his studio set, had seen what happened with the sacking of Phil Donahue at MSNBC and took note that it wasn't healthy for one's career to criticize that "war on terror". Robert Scheer would know a little about that, too.

Cronkite loathed the entertainment creep into television news, as did Dan Rather. But Paddy Chayefsky saw it all coming long ago, didn't he? Watching Murdoch's Faux or Fixed News is like watching "Network". Roger Ailes, a telvision hack, apparently thought Chayefsky's work was a prototype, perhaps a "pilot".

Sure Cronkite has gotten a respectable amount of coverage with his passing, but nothing like the worship, fawning and brain-numbing coverage Russert got. It doesn't seem right.

Maybe Michael Jackson has something to do with it all. Poor Farah Fawcett never really had her day. The Gloved One stole all her ink. Maybe Americans just want to take off their sackcloth and send it to the dry cleaners after the last month.

But whatever, Walter Cronkite was the real deal. Had he passed when Russert did, the coverage probably would have been greater.

I think that maybe in the aftermath of Jackson's non-stop season of mourning, Americans are just worn out with eulogies. Or maybe...maybe Chayefsky knew us better than we gave him credit for.