Sadly, our flags are all at half-staff today as we mourn the loss of not only a great journalist and a great American, but a great Buffalonian.

You know, when I did two years lived in Buffalo, one of the teevee stations had a “what does Buffalo mean to you” commercial running constantly. They’d say “the Bills” or “the Sabres” or whatever. And then they’d end with “it’s the weather. That crazy weather. Now that’s Buffalo.”

That commercial used to piss my friend Pat (a native) off to no end, since it was, well, pretty stupid. If they’d have asked me, I’d have said “the bars close at 4 am, now that’s Buffalo.”

Anyway, Timmy, in a lot of ways, was “Buffalo.” The epitome (superficially, at least) of that big-hearted, big-headed, affable, working class Western New Yorker. Of course, he wasn’t actually working class, and he was a poor excuse for a journalist (or maybe just the perfect example of how far teevee journalism has fallen), but I bet he really was a likable fellow, and I bet his colleagues really do feel bad about his death. Hell, I feel bad, and I never even knew him.

It’s always sad when somebody young (and, at my age, 58 definitely qualifies as young) passes away, and it’s sad for Tim’s dad and his wife and kid. But that sad story is repeated hundreds – thousands, no doubt – of times a day, every day. And nobody really seems to notice, let alone care.

To what extent do we hold ‘journalists’ like Russert responsible for the death and destruction in Iraq (among other places) that they’ve enabled by their tacit (if not overt) support of crazy King George and his Prince of Darkness regent Darth Cheney? And for the incredibly sorry state of our political system, really. Instead of getting the answers to the important questions, the media is now tasked with providing ratings-ready kabuki theater that ultimately means nothing and is useless.

Look at this past primary season, for instance. Regardless of who you may have supported or how you feel about the outcome, we just spent six or so months on the Seinfeld election; a campaign about nothing. No issues were raised or discussed. It was all about lapel pins and “3 AM” and whether landing in Bosnia was really as scary as you remember, and a whole lot of absolute bullshit. All driven by the inability of the media to believe that “we the people” care (or deserve to know) about anything substantive.

Not to lay this all at Tim Russert’s feet, of course. He was just one of many all-too-willing (and easily replaceable) cogs in a profit-driven machine. Not designed to make a profit off ‘news’ coverage, necessarily, but designed to make it possible for the corporations that own the media and our government to earn record profits. If they need to throw a few hundred million dollars at flashy graphics and propaganda designed to drag us into a war that will net billions in profits for the oil industry, no problem.

Russert was happy to do his part, and had he felt a twinge of conscience, there’d have been plenty of people ready to take his place (no doubt plenty of young eager vultures are already scrambling to take his place).

So, no, I don’t demonize Timmy. But I can’t bring myself to sing his praises – or pretend that the noble profession of journalism has lost a hero. I feel sad in the same way that I mourn the loss of any human being with friends and family that cared for them. I just wish that our ‘media’ could muster up a fraction of the compassion they feel for the passing of Tim Russert for the damage they’ve enabled over the past eight years.

But, as my dad used to say, wish in one hand and shit in the other, and see which fills up faster.