An Irish wake

NOW, AFTER HIS DEATH, in congratulating [Tim] Russert, his eulogists in the press get to congratulate themselves. On Hardball, Chris Matthews decided to have a show much like the one he always has, stacked with Irish Catholic men. This time it was more self-conscious, but the self-consciousness of it only underscored the incredible skewed reality that the show presents day in and day out.

Matthews began with a prayer. "Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. [Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.]" Then he introduced guys who are on his show all the time, Mike Barnicle and Pat Buchanan. And the three of them had a kind of Irish wake on the air, laughing, remembering, talking about the importance of parochial school and the values imbued in Tim and all of them by the nuns. On and on they went, about Catholicism and the Irish, and the special quality of Irish Catholics as "truth tellers," as people who "get the bad guys"-prosecutors, G-men and journalists. Russert was put right up there in the pantheon of FBI agents, without irony, people who delve for the truth, for the light, for the greater good against the "bad guys." Matthews used that phrase, "bad guys," over and over. Then he closed the segment with the other half of the prayer: "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death."

Russert, they said, was the guy who always did it better. So it was as if the closing prayer put Tim right there by the side of Mary, an interlocutor to God for the lesser lights, the Chrises and Pats and Mikes, the "sinners" who only strive to be like him....

From "The Canonization of St. Tim," by Alexander Cockburn, The Nation, 7 July 2008.

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