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.”

NBC gave him a talk show with the deeply stupid name “Rock Center” (no one in the known history of New York has referred to Rockefeller Center as “Rock Center,” I’m sorry that “30 Rock” took the name you wanted but you have to come up with something different), where he is not quite as funny as a late night talk show host and not quite as newsy as a news show host. And, obviously, not as opinionated as a cable news show host, because as a network evening news anchor, Mr. Williams is not allowed to think for himself, or hold opinions on issues other than the annoyingness of those Brooklyn Hipsters.

But it’s the never-ending, nonstop, beat-you-over-the-head blue-collar Jersey Shore shtick that grates the most. It’s desperate and unconvincing, coming from a multimillionaire television personality. We get it! You used to be “authentically” American, according to some arbitrary signifiers! (And if you’re so damn proud, why did you lose your accent?)

HACKIEST 2011 MOMENT:
A January appearance on “The Late Show With David Letterman,” in which Letterman, who in recent years has often displayed an environmentalist streak, asked Williams if recent freak weather events could be traced to anthropogenic climate change. Williams, mugging but clearly uncomfortable, declined to even acknowledge the existence of climate change itself. He refused to “take sides,” and joked, “What have I done to deserve this?” A perfect encapsulation of the uselessness of the “objective” (and idiotic) network nightly news anchor, too cowardly or dumb to “take sides” on a “debate” between craven political actors and the nearly universal scientific consensus. (But why would we expect a regular guy’s guy from Jersey to understand all that complicated climate science? He’s too busy cruising the shore in his souped-up Bel Air Hardtop with Mary and Puerto Rican Johnny to examine the evidence!)

- – - – - – - – - -

(Read the introduction here. Read the 2010 Salon Hack 30 List here.)

Greenspan said too that the downgrade would likely precipitate market turmoil, but that the possibility of a double-dip recession depended on Europe..

Appearing alongside Greenspan, Austan Goolsbee, the chairman of the White House’s council of economic advisors, hit out at S&P. “Well, the basic case is they made a $2 trillion math error and forgot to check their work,” he said. “So rating agencies that didn’t make a $2 trillion math error reaffirmed the AAA status.”

Watch the clip below:

The poll results, released Tuesday show that 55 percent of respondents think that failing to raise the debt ceiling would be “a real and serious problem,” while only 18 percent said it would not be. This contrasts starkly to results gleaned from a Gallup survey in May, in which 47 percent of people said they would want Congress to vote against raising the debt ceiling.

Meanwhile, support for President Obama’s proposal for lowering the deficit significantly trumps that for Republican proposals: 58 percent of NBC/WSJ poll respondents said they preferred Obama’s suggestions to lower the federal deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years by cutting federal spending, raising tax revenue from the wealthy and reducing some Medicare spending. Contrastingly, only just over a third prefer the House Republican proposal to reduce the deficit by $2.5 trillion over 10 years through cutting spending alone and not raising additional revenues.

Here are some “Friday Night Light” tips for when you lose at life.

1. Get rid of that pride, boy

In the “devil town” of Dillon, everyone must eventually answer for their sins. Whether its conning your church out of money to buy steroids, making an off-handed racist remark to the press, or screwing your crippled best friend’s girlfriend — and hey, we’re still in season one! – there is no moral or ethical slip that goes unpunished on “Friday Night Lights.”

And while that could turn another type of show into a real downer, Coach T. is always there to pick you up when you fall … as long as your hubris doesn’t stand in the way. When QB Matt Saracen skips practice to get drunk at the local strip club in season two, and misses his grandmother’s trip to the hospital (yikes), it’s hard to imagine anyone getting back on their feet from that kind of screw up. But as Coach knows, there’s nothing like an ice-water bath and some primal crying to start the healing process.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have the McCoy family: with son J.D. too proud (or scared) to break away from his over-achieving, physically abusive father and side with the protective coach, he ends up taking on more and more of his old man’s nasty qualities. Both Matt and J.D. make bad decisions because of their daddy issues, but only Matt is strong enough to ask for help. Guess who ends up better off in the end?

2. If you’re going to lose, lose honorably

The Panthers lost the state championships at the end of Season 3, and it cost Coach T. his job at the school. That’s the part of life where most people would give up and crawl under the covers with a bottle of Xanax. But Eric Taylor knows he made the right call by benching J.D. and putting Matt in, even if that meant losing the game and hurting his career.

This theme is repeated off the field as well: Tim Riggins going to jail for his brother when the police raid their chop-shop; Lyla Garrity continuing her cheerleading after her affair with Tim makes her a social pariah; Jason giving up his dreams in order to raise the child he accidentally fathered. After all, losing is half the game, and as Tami Taylor puts it, “Either way, the sun is going to come up the next morning.” Sure, it’s a rehashed line from “Annie,” and the point is even more cliché, but it still holds water … win or lose, in life it’s all about how you play the game.

3. Surround yourself with your people

Even Coach Taylor isn’t infallible, and when he does screw up, he has the support of his team, his family, and even Buddy Garrity to rely on. No one on “Friday Night Lights” can do it alone, and woe to the person who tries to remain tough and aloof when trouble comes knocking. Everyone on the show has to learn this lesson – some people like Tim Riggins have to learn it over and over – but the nice thing about football metaphors is that they work even when you’ve heard them a thousand times before. There is just no “I” in Taylor’s team.

Unfortunately, that does means the show occasionally takes a small-town mentality when it comes to characters trying to leave Dillon to move on with a life past high school football. This is usually shown as a bad decision, like when Coach goes to teach college ball at the end of season one, or when Riggins goes to college. Whatever happens to Jason Street or Smash or Lyla after they head out into the big scary world is their own affair … by leaving the Dillon nest, they are removed from the sacred circle privy to Coach’s pep-talks. We can only imagine that they’re all gutter junkies now, turning tricks and wishing that they’d stayed in Texas.

4. Failure is a state of mind

Living in Dillon isn’t easy. This is doubly so if you live in East Dillon, which is so completely different from (West?) Dillon that it’s basically “The Wire’s” portrayal of Baltimore dropped down in the south. East Dillon is so messed up that no one on the show really even talks about its existence until a Katrina-like natural disaster somehow decimates the poor, black side of town (but not the affluent suburban area). Or when Coach T. is exiled to run the East Dillon Lions as punishment for not throwing himself at the mercy of Mr. McCoy. But looking around the decimated playing field of East Dillon High, Mr. and Mrs. Taylor make their first move together: picking up the garbage strewn on the grass, one piece at a time.

By the end of the fifth season, the Lions are the new Panthers, thanks to tough love from a coach who won’t let his team be defined by their poor track record, bad attitudes, or shady after-school activities. If you want to act like a coward, you best get the hell off the field and out of the coach’s house.

5. …except when it isn’t

On “Friday Night Lights,” almost every episode includes a character learning something about themselves and becoming better for it: a better friend, a better son or daughter, a better teammate. But for all the emotional manipulation that the show cleverly steeps itself in, it grounds itself with the memory of its very first episode, when star quarterback Jason Street is paralyzed from an injury during a game. Sometimes life is suffering, princess, and there is no way you can “better yourself” out of the pain.

Coach T.’s voice leading the team in prayer at the end of the pilot episode sums this up better than I ever could:

“Give all of us gathered here tonight the strength to remember that life is so very fragile. We are all vulnerable. And we will all, at some point in our lives, fall. We will all fall. We must carry this in our hearts: that what we have is special, and that it can be taken from us. And when it is taken from us, we will be tested. We will be tested to our very souls.

We will now all be tested. It is at these times, it is this pain, that allows us to look inside ourselves.”

In other words: just because you can’t fix it, doesn’t mean you can’t grow from it. Clear eyes, full hearts … yes, even if you lose.