Ezra Klein Says “F— Tim Russert” And Worse, Should Be Banned From “Hardball”

January 6, 2008 in American Prospect, Ezra Klein, MSNBC
Tags: American Prospect, Chris Matthews, Ezra Klein, MSNBC, Tim Russert

“Big Media Ezra” Klein is well-known to bloggers and some media pundits as a sort of wunderkind — a lowly blogger who quickly rose to a perch at the little-read esteemed American Prospect and to appearances on the little-watched influential “Hardball with Chris Matthews” on MSNBC. He’s half your age, but his book will be out before yours.

He is important enough to command his own special blog on the Prospect’s website, cleverly named “Ezra Klein” and with the so-clever-it-kills-me tagline “Momma said wonk you out.” [Special note, Prospecters: LL spelled it “Mama”] Last night he said this about the moderation of the Democrat debate on MSNBC:

It’s almost impossible for me to convey the damage Tim Russert and Brian Williams are doing to the republic this evening. So far, the questioning has gone something like: “Hillary, are you a racist?” “Barack, are you a scary black man who will continually remind us that we are racists?” “Senator Obama, why are you such a dick?” “Senator Clinton, would you like to comment on Senator Obama’s past drug use?” “Senator Obama, you say you want to move us forward, but your press people have released documents mentioning Hillary Clinton. Please explain.”

It’s “almost impossible … to convey the damage [they] doing to the republic”? Hyperbole, good to see you, too.
But that’s nothing. Klein also maintains a publicly available account on the short-message blogging service Twitter, where he wrote, and forget quotes, here’s the screen shot:

Now that’s what I call contributing to the public discourse!

Of course, Russert is the managing editor of NBC News, the top NBC man in Washington, so he has a lot of control, if not complete sayso over who appears on the air. Don’t you think he’d like to hear about this? How about his fellow “Hardball” guests? What are the chances they would let him back on the air to share his nutroots wisdom with the cocktail party chattering classes? Well, they won’t have to make a decision if they don’t find out about it. And they SHOULD find out about it.

If a conservative was caught fantasizing (or even joking about fantasizing) about committing murderous sodomy against the management of a TV show he or she frequently appeared on, what is the likelihood that blogger would be invited back? You can bet the nutroots would be crowing about this on Daily Kos. We should be able to do the same.

If you have time, please send an e-mail to these e-mails below. And if you do, please be polite. Our strength is in reason, their strength is swearing up a storm. We have reasonable demands. Ezra Klein should not be invited back to “Hardball.”

Tim Russert, NBC News managing editor
mtp@msnbc.com

Chris Matthews, Hardball host
hardball@msnbc.com

Chuck Todd, NBC News political director
chuck.todd@nbcuni.com

Steve Capus, NBC News president
steve.capus@nbc.com

UPDATE – Yet Ezra himself finds “Clinton hatred” to be “baffling.” Really? Sounds like he understands hatred pretty well.

UPDATE II – Welcome, Kausfilers! You’ll notice this is the first post. I’ll be back.

UPDATE III – Oh well, looks like Ezra has locked up his Twitter account. I wonder what secretive, Townhouse-style rants he will be cooking up next. If anyone knows, leave a comment.

UPDATE IV – Welcome, everyone. This post has been much more popular than I expected. This was the first post launching the blog, but only that. Click here to visit the main page and see the latest posts at The Unpopular Front.