NBC - TIM RUSSERT MAKES NEWS AT LIBBY TRIAL

NBC's Meet the Press moderator Tim Russert became a newsmaker himself Wednesday when he took the witness stand at the perjury trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and denied that he had told Libby that Valerie Plame Wilson was a CIA officer. In fact, he said, he never discussed Ms. Wilson with Libby and did not know at the time that she worked for the CIA. His testimony lasted barely a few minutes before Libby's defense attorneys took over cross-examination, grilling him about his memory of events. He "stopped speaking in the confident, complete sentences in which he had answered the prosecutor in his direct testimony. Instead, he became more deliberate and halting in his responses," the New York Times reported. In the Washington Post, media writer Howard Kurtz commented: "It was, at bottom, a case study in the importance of controlling the microphone. On the air, NBC's Washington bureau chief asks the questions, frames the issues or serves up political insight.On the witness stand, by contrast, even the cockiest pundit is by definition on the defensive." The prosecutor also questioned Russert about his original effort to avoid testifying on first amendment grounds, pointing out that at the time, Russert had already spoken freely about the matter to the FBI.

08/02/2007