Dave Winer:

I could only watch two minutes of Meet the Press before the disgust came back. Russert is doing what he always does, tries to twist the soundbite into an admission of hypocrisy. New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin doesn't have the lawyer's gift that former prosecutor Rudy Giuliani does. "Is it really racism?" Russert expresses doubt, asking over and over for proof that decisions were made on a racist basis. The answer is in another question. If the dying tax-paying grandmas were white do you think they would have been allowed to die? I don't care if a Republican actually said out loud that he or she hates blacks, the actions speak for themselves. We live in a sick country with a sick governing process, and that sickness definitely includes the press.

I would have preferred a different answer from Nagin, something like this:

"I don't know, Tim. I know I didn't make decisions based on race, and I don't think anyone around me did, but the result was a huge number of black people who suffered and died, and a huge number of white people who did not. I think it's a fair question.

"Now, Tim, you are a journalist. You're one of the marquee names at one of the largest news organizations in the world, one that produces 22 1⁄2 hours of network TV every week and runs a 24/7 cable news channel with one of the largest news sites on the Internet. I don't know why other people decided what they did. Why don't you use those resources and find out if it was racism? I'd really like to see your investigation."

I think a lot of us would like to see that, a lot more than seeing Timmy continually badger people to do his job for him.