Barry Crimmins

Exclusive: Ernest P. Worrell impersonator sought in grisly double murder

This is a heinous crime but would someone please check to make sure the police sketch artist didn't watch Ernest Goes To Jail before he or she came up with the composite sketch that's above on the left?

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Since MSNBC insists we continue to consider the late NBC Washington bureau chief, here's another thought about the man who is being celebrated for "asking great questions." The problem with Tim Russert wasn't found in the questions he asked. The problem was found in the answers he accepted.

If NBC felt it was appropriate to basically shut down its cable news operation (MSNBC) over the weekend to accommodate employee grief and shock over the death of a beloved colleague, the proper thing to do would have been to sign-off until network officials were sure its people were once again capable of at least pretending to cover the rest of the news. That way everyone would have been spared the televising of the excessive behavior many people exhibit at times of grief. Such emotion belongs in private and not on the air. And this is doubly true when those grieving are also public performers who, to at least some extent, are in competition with one another.

NBC has announced its fall schedule and remarkably enough it doesn't include "Remembering Tim Russert." Tom Duffy at the Garlic may have discovered where such programming will find a home.

In any case, had MSNBC demonstrated decorum and not covered Mr. Russert's death as if Brittany Spears had been in a head-on collision with OJ Simpson, who was then caught with Natalie Holloway in the trunk of his car, I think there would be a much more dignified focus on his upcoming memorial service. Now it just looks like another made-for-TV event.

My choice to host Meet the Press? Helen Thomas. Now there's a reporter who knows what to ask and how to follow up until she gets an answer.

And by the way, thanks for all the comments on my previous Russert post from the other day, you folks make a lot of tremendous points.

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How dare the Obama campaign hire former Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle as chief of staff for the eventual V-P choice! It's a slap in the face of women, particularly when there are so many feminists like Terry McAuliffe, Mark Penn and even Bill Clinton still available for duties this fall.

Doesn't Obama understand that once Hillary Clinton has fired someone, that person is to remain banished forever?

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Speaking of the campaign, it seems to me that Al Giordano's splitting The Field away from Rural Votes is a perfect example of the kind of friction we're going to be seeing between the old ward-heeling Dems and the new more democratically organized movement that made Barack Obama the presumptive D nominee.

Traditionally when "new blood" revives the party, the bosses swoop in to remind everyone who is really in control. That's how we got Tom Eagleton. Let's hope that it isn't so easy for them to swoop in this time (particularly because the regular folks have paid for their rightful place at the table.) Anyway, once Al and the very vibrant community of Fieldhands became a phenomenally successful collaboration, swoop the old-schoolers did, with censorship of readers comments and even of Al's posts. But Giordano didn't put up with it and so moved on. Many Fieldhands found out what had happened because Al had organized readers into geographic affinity groups. Once he moved the operation, it was easy for just a few people to get out the word to the masses. So in the battle between the backroom censors and the grassroots organizers, score one for the organizers.

By the time the Field's former hosts disappeared months of posts and the tens of thousands of comments they provoked, Giordano already had copies of everything. So what was posted since he first began busting sod for what would yield a bumper crop of activism will soon be back online at the new site. The only problem that remains concerns the funds raised to "keep Al writing" and "send Al to Denver." Oh, and of course there is the matter of credentials for the DNC that Al's former hosts never would have received were it not for the massive traffic Giordano drew to the site.

I can't believe the former hosts of the Field would be foolhardy enough to fail to get the funds and commodities earmarked for Al, to Al. As of this moment, the right thing has yet to be done.

In any case, the little folks ponied up the dough for Al to cover the nomination of the candidate they ponied up in support of as well. The Democratic Convention will have a few old party goons staggering around, aggravated at their loss of control and looking overdressed for Denver in August. But the times they are a-changin' and most Dems, even the old party regulars, will realize that they have to get onboard or get out of the way, 'cause a big train's coming through. It says here that thanks to the power of organizers, most everyone will be onboard before it rolls into the Mile-High City .


Serenity Curse:

My goodness is former Reagan pablum-shoveler Peggy Noonan maddening. Her contrived serenity is straight out of the Mommy Dearest school of emotional manipulation. She's as soothing as a porcelain pipebomb.

UPDATE/CORRECTION: Tara Van Niman points out that Al Giordano didn't organize the Fieldhands into geographical affinity groups, they did so themselves. I apologize for my inaccurate statement and will make sure to get it right if and when I mention the Fieldhands' organizational structure again. -- Barry Crimmins