“I don’t think this well-rehearsed and well-briefed senator from North Carolina was ready for the assault,” said Matthews, who insisted, “Dick Cheney was loaded for bear tonight. He went looking for squirrel and he found squirrel” in the form of Edwards. He later suggested Edwards often looked stunned, as if he’d been “slapped” by Cheney’s devastating debating technique. Matthews also demanded to know if the “liberal press” would admit “Cheney won.”

Yet nowhere else on the television landscape — not even on Fox News — was Cheney crowned the winner. Most pundits saw the debate as an obvious draw:

— ABC News political director Mark Halperin told PBS’s Charlie Rose the debate was a “nonevent because it didn’t change the dynamic.”

— Surveying fellow journalists covering the debate, CNN’s Judy Woodruff, host of “Inside Politics,” reported, “Their opinion is this debate was close to a draw.” She added, “If Dick Cheney was hoping to put away John Edwards, he didn’t do that tonight.”

— David Gergen, who has counseled both Democratic and Republican administrations, agreed that the debate was a standoff, telling CNN’s Larry King that “it ran out of electricity about halfway through. It began to drag.”

— Fox News’ Bill Kristol said, “Cheney clearly won the first half on national security. I think Edwards won the second half” on domestic issues. Kristol argued the first half was more important.

— “I can imagine Democratic living rooms, cheering every time Edwards punched. And Republican living rooms when Cheney punched,” said ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. “But I don’t think either candidate did much to sway voters on the fence.”

ABC News’ instant poll found more viewers thought Cheney won the debate, by a margin of 43 to 35. But as ABC anchor Peter Jennings noted, the poll was weighted heavily toward Republican respondents because the network found more Republicans watched the debate.

CBS ran a scientific survey of 200 uncommitted voters nationwide, which found Edwards won the debate by a clear margin, 41-29. The CBS survey found Cheney suffered a dramatic gender gap among women voters.

None of that seemed to matter inside the MSNBC echo chamber. Matthews and his crew had their story line — Cheney won big! — and they were sticking with it, with Matthews even wondering out loud if the choice of Edwards for V.P. “casts doubt on the judgment of John Kerry,” and whether Edwards may “not be ready to be vice president of the United States.”

Which again raises the question: What debate was Matthews watching, and what did Edwards ever do to him?

Russert isn’t the only famous child in media. He isn’t even the only famous child at NBC, which also employs Jenna Bush Hager and Chelsea Clinton (who renewed her three-month temporary contract earlier this year, despite barely producing any work for the network). Fox has Peter Doocy, Chris Wallace and, here in New York, Greg Kelly. ABC has Chris Cuomo, and CNN Anderson Cooper. A.G. Sulzberger is a reporter for the New York Times. Some of those people are fine journalists, by the way. Nepotism has always been a major force in journalism and media — it is a fact of life and one that would be exhausting to be continually het up about — and plenty of nepotism beneficiaries are wonderful writers and talented people. If you’re raised by interesting people and get a good education at home and at the finest schools, you really ought to turn out pretty smart. But Russert is emblematic of the sort of nepotism that gives nepotism a bad name. He’s not a wonderful writer or a particularly talented person. And unlike Chelsea Clinton and her very silly “reporting good news about people who do charity or something” beat, he’s actually got a real journalism job that someone else without the name Russert could be doing much more effectively. He’s not even particularly good on TV.

Russert in some respects more closely resembles a second-generation politician than a typical dynasty hire in journalism. Like Al Gore and Harold Ford Jr., he is a graduate of St. Albans — the elite Washington all-boys private school that molds little moderate politicians and self-consciously imitates the old New England boarding schools that used to serve the WASPs who ran the country — and like a junior Kennedy he’s decidedly less impressive than his tragic father. Russert spent his college years at Boston College acting basically like a well-off young meathead. (His sole notable achievement during those years was being the subject of one of the Internet’s very first “embarrassing Facebook photo of the child of a notable person” stories.) He was hired at NBC, in what most took to be a slightly unconventional corporate expression of grief, within months of his graduation with a communications degree.

He seems dimly aware that nepotism won him his job, but in denial as to the fact that it’s allowed him to keep it. As he told Howard Kurtz in 2010:

He knows what some colleagues and detractors say — that he wouldn’t be in this job if not for his last name. “I just try to really block that out,” Russert says. “The news media is a results-oriented business. I don’t think a company like NBC would pay me if I wasn’t qualified and wasn’t able to produce on this level…

“There will always be people who will say, ‘Oh, he’s only gotten where he is because of his father,’ and that certainly helped. But I’ve been able to stay here because of me.”

Denial of his extraordinary genetic luck for the sake of his self-respect is a common trope with poor Luke. He was using the same line in 2008, barely after he was hired: “Did my name get my foot in the door? Absolutely, I’ll be the first to admit that. But has my performance and ability got my butt through the door? Yes.” (In the same interview, Russert revealingly compared himself to Joe Buck, a second-generation sportscaster with an astoundingly enviable career, whom no one on Earth actually likes.) He also claimed to have absolutely no clue how he managed to score two much-sought-after (unpaid, natch) internships as a college student, at NBC and at Michael Bloomberg’s City Hall. “I went through the application process like anyone else,” he told the Times. (Russert had at least one other killer internship, too, at ESPN.)

But our target here is Russert, and he is not personally responsible for NBC’s decision to bequeath him a broadcasting job. If we focus on the work and not the means by which Russert got the job, things don’t look much better. Initially, at least, the grown-ups on the air always seemed to be holding Russert’s hand as he tried to remember his lines, as if he were a child and not a fully grown college graduate and professional. It’s obvious that everyone who knew his father loves Luke. But everyone’s affection for the kid is not transmissible through a television set, alas, and Russert’s appearances seemed like some rich guy’s kid’s piano recital suddenly taking place in the middle of a professional orchestra’s concert.

His initial role was as MSNBC’s semi-official “young person” correspondent, because reporting on what he himself was seemed the least ridiculous thing to have Luke Russert suddenly doing in a national cable news network’s presidential election coverage. And in his role as a young person reporting on what young people think of presidential politics, Russert sounded like an old person — like an old Washington lifer — talking about what he thinks the young people today are all about. (No self-respecting young person, to use one brief example, uses the term “millennial.“)

Here’s an early report:

This is like a master class in pointless political pseudo-analysis. All the resources and staff of MSNBC at his disposal, and the package still looks and sounds like it was put together for a high school civics class presentation. (I mean, except that Larry Sabato shows up halfway through. I guess it is professional Washington journalism!) Kids are turning off their reality TV and tuning into the real-life Amazing Race! Facebook and stuff, some experts say! Only time will tell. For MSNBC, I’m a person with no business having this job.

(This is the piece that Russert concluded by making a minor gaffe that set the right against him, for a moment: The “smartest kids in the state” go to UVA, he told Matt Lauer, so they naturally favor Obama. This was actually just poorly stated conventional wisdom, not really “liberal bias” — by “the smartest kids in the state” he meant, he later explained, kids “from affluent, highly educated households.”)

Months after hiring Russert, Steve Capus, president of NBC News, called him one of the network’s “rookies of the year,” which doesn’t reflect well on NBC’s 2008 rookie class. (Russert returned the favor with effusive praise for his boss.)

On the basis of his impressive reporting and ease in front of the camera still being named Russert, Luke was promoted, after the election, to congressional correspondent. That’s the contempt with which NBC News views the occupation of journalism. To make Luke Russert a congressional reporter is to say, “We believe that this job requires no particular knowledge, training or skills. If a German shepard could be trained to speak, it could perform this work.” (That’s true of most cable news work, granted, but it really doesn’t have to be.) Proper reporting on the House of Representatives is actually difficult and largely thankless work, generally done by very hardworking and underpaid reporters. The assignment was transparently NBC’s attempt to help Russert develop chops, and what it has yielded thus far is the time Charlie Rangel called Luke dumb, which MSNBC turned into a two-day story.

NBC seems to be keeping Russert employed in the hopes that he’ll eventually develop an ability to simulate gravitas. Hopefully “Meet the Press” will still be on the air by the time Luke has mastered his serious face.

His Twitter feed presents a perfectly dull person with perfectly banal thoughts. When he drifts into attempted solemnity it’s usually more amusing than his actual attempts at humor. (More quality insight, right here.) It’s precisely what you would imagine the result would be if the elite Beltway press somehow collectively raised a child from birth — which is, in effect, what actually happened. He subscribes to every shibboleth of Washington conventional wisdom and shows fealty to all the proper institutions.

When Jeff Himmelman wrote that the legendary Bob Woodward had misrepresented a few facts in “All the President’s Men,” Russert was outraged on behalf of the institution of Bob Woodward:

Pathetic the chattering class is trying to sell books and papers on issues of no substance attacking the most storied career in journalism.

— Luke Russert (@LukeRussert) May 1, 2012

Luke. “The chattering class” is you. (And Bob Woodward, whose singular goal for the last 35 years or so has been “trying to sell books.”)

A popular reoccurring trope in Russert tweets and interviews is his deep respect for the politicians he is lucky enough to cover. “No matter how much I disagree w pols,” he writes, “I always respect their desire to stand up for their views & put their family through hell 2 win.”

To Kurtz, again:

Unlike most journalists, he describes covering Congress as “a real honor.”

“I have a real respect for them. While a lot of folks view them as the epitome of everything that’s wrong with America now, it takes a lot to put yourself out there in the public sphere, and your family.”

What if some pols’ views, if they even have any to speak of, are not worth standing up for? Was putting the family through hell worth it then? The 435 people who make up the House of Representatives are, on average, no nobler or wiser than any randomly selected group of 435 Americans. In many cases the members of Congress are much dumber and more craven than the people they represent (they’re also, on average, richer, whiter and much more likely to be male). To Luke Russert, though, they are noble public servants, and to love America is to respect its political elite. This is a classic symptom of Beltway myopia: mistaking the politicians for democracy. The greatest moment in politics, for Luke Russert, was the time the president argued in circles with Eric Cantor for a while, on TV, and no one came away having changed their mind.

Because he is being groomed to be a simulacra of his father, and because he is merely a jukebox for the cliches and conclusions of the elders grooming him, Russert can get tripped up when attempting to be Broderian on the fly. Dylan Ratigan threw him for a loop when he challenged him on the eternal wiseness of bipartisan-approved “free trade” deals — Russert just laughed, nervously and idiotically, when faced, for what was probably the very first time in his life, with actual arguments against making it easier for American corporations to gain access to cheap and easily exploitable foreign labor.

Ratigan: My Colombian, the Colombian deal’s my favorite. That’s a big job creator. Whaddya say we do a deal with the only country in the world that openly murders all labor organizers, to ensure that they will never ask for a raise ever.

L’il Luke: Well, Colombia, though, in all fairness, Colombia has had massive strides in improvement in terms of their security. I mean, you’re bringing up something that George Miller–

Ratigan: But I’m saying the murder rate of union organizers on a per capita–

L’il Luke: Well, that’s why there’s Democratic opposition in the House for it right now and they have to figure out that, you know, technicality there.

Just a little technicality! A minor bump on the road to a reassuring, job-creating compromise!

Dylan was just having a bit of fun with Luke, there. A few months later they bonded over their shared love of Seriousness About The Deficit. From Luke’s pious, pitch-perfect, impossible-to-parody script on a sad display of partisanship:

If you look at the backdrop, Dylan, just look at the stats. Federal revenue now is at its lowest level since 1950. If you extend the Bush tax cuts the way the Republicans want, you get $3.8 trillion added to the deficits. If you add them the way Democrats want, you get $3 trillion added over the next three years. If you don’t do anything to Medicare or Medicaid or social security, those programs will not be solvent.

Both parties don’t want to tell the American people it’s time to drink their tough medicine.

Both parties are going to try to take 2012 as the avenue to have this debate further. But as this debate goes on and on and on, the real difficult decisions, the real ideas of how are we going to cut this deficit, they go unanswered.

All so folks can can get re-elected, continue to get their $174,000 salaries, and the beat goes on and on. The special interests get rich, the parties can argue and argue and argue.

Really, nothing sums up contemporary American media and politics better than a twerp like Luke Russert sternly announcing that we’ll all soon have to get used to taking our “tough medicine.”

Well now Faithful America has come out with an awesome ad which best speaks to the point. Only MSNBC rejected this ad. Therefore, I guess it’s up to us to spread its message:

My guess is that Perkins will whine about how supposedly the left is trying to silence him and other people of faith. In actuality, I don’t want him silenced. I want there to be a conversation about the entire issue.

And the first place we should start is with the charges in the ad.

PLEASE spread it around. Let’s make this thing very viral!

Salon staff writer Irin Carmon appeared on MSNBC’s “Up With Chris Hayes” on Sunday morning to discuss the week’s news in general and this story in particular. In the excerpt below, Carmon stands by the coverage and explains what Santorum and Romney’s positions on contraception and reproductive rights really mean. Watch the full show here.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

All that’s left, really, is to proudly announce his ascension to the throne as worst hack in America.

HACKIEST 2011 MOMENT:
Halperin’s worst low of the last year actually happened in 2010, but it occurred after the Hack 30 was finished, and is thus eligible for inclusion here. Immediately after it was announced that Elizabeth Edwards had died, MSNBC had Halperin on to eulogize her. Halperin did not mention his integral role in the national smearing of Edwards as a harridan (“an abusive, intrusive, paranoid, condescending crazy-woman,” in the eyes of unnamed “insiders,” according to Halperin’s last book).
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(Read the introduction here. Read the 2010 Salon Hack 30 List here.)

So every morning he and Mika Brzezinski — who either pretends to be a weak-willed flighty moron because she thinks it’s necessary for her continued professional success as Joe’s oft-belittled second banana/screwball love interest or who is actually tragically stupid — perform the world’s most self-satisfied kaffeeklatsch (along with Willie Geist, the former Tucker Carlson sidekick and a man born to play the guy who dies first in a war movie). Their rotating cast of regular guests includes some of the biggest superstars in political hackery, from Jon Meacham to Mark Halperin to Whitey Bulger-defender/plagiarist Mike Barnicle, but what people who are far too easily entertained love most is the “banter,” that nonstop juvenile japery that I guess passes for wit when it’s 6:30 a.m. and you’re a tragically dull Washington, D.C., lifer. Joe can’t stop cracking up at the word “sodomized” during a discussion of … rape charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn! Hysterical stuff.

(Let’s pause here to remember Scarborough’s long history of being a sanctimonious “decency” crusader, demanding tough FCC penalties for fleeting obscenities on television, which seems to have ended after he said “fuck you” on air one morning, at which point his show instituted a somewhat glitchy seven-second delay.)

It’s Mr. Scarborough’s jocular chauvinism that is the most immediately repellent thing about him and his program, but what may be even hackier is his utterly unself-aware devotion to the “civility” myth. The civility crowd consists of a bunch of rich elites who’ve convinced themselves that all of America’s problems (their list of America’s problems basically consists of the federal deficit and “incivility”) would be solved if Republicans and Democrats sat down in a room and all agreed to basically become Rockefeller Republicans. This weird fantasy animates most of Scarborough’s political analysis, which is especially rich coming from an actual former Republican congressman who rode into Congress not based on a nationwide yearning for civility but rather run-of-the-mill right-wing anger, and who eventually voted to impeach a president for nakedly partisan reasons.

As an official political media elite professional, Joe rails against the “media elite” in columns written for Politico, the D.C. newspaper and website that used to publish Scarborough alongside a liberal counterpart until the liberal counterpart left and wasn’t replaced. These columns, amateurishly written and barely edited, show just how easy it is to become an important political power player if you have the requisite Bloombergian opinions and the correctly sized head for television.

HACKIEST 2011 MOMENT:
His unconscionably bad 9/11 “tribute song,” an ill-conceived celebrity vanity project that becomes more offensive the more you think of it.
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(Read the introduction here. Read the 2010 Salon Hack 30 List here.)