Tim Russert has improved in four years. Instead of 2000's dry-erase board, he now has a Tablet PC that can be both shot directly by a camera or projected onto NBC's big screen behind him. But he's still scribbling items on the board, rather than using a more dramatic, graphical way of presenting information. It's kooky. He's sitting in NBC News's outdoor electrodrome (sorry, it's Democracy Plaza!) in Rockefeller Center, amid the giant projected electoral map on ice, and he's writing on a 21st Century Etch-a-Sketch.
But Russert gets the Rather Prize for being the first person I noticed to liken electoral mechanics to Mexican food. "California is the big enchilada," he said. Please, Tim. We're more like a bowl of nachos.
