"Here's our chance to make Ron Paul look bad and seem like a fringe candidate to millions of Americans!" And notice that Russert didn't really try to argue very vigorously with Paul here. He was just trying to get him to make these controversial statements on record. And he succeeded. And, lo and behold, outlets like MSNBC began replaying this segment and denouncing Paul and calling him a crackpot, saying that no historians agree with him. So I would say that Russert may have been successful. Fortunately, MSNBC had Paul back on to discuss the issues in greater detail and he acquitted him self quite nicely (not that he was ever guilty to begin with). So maybe Russert's ploy ultimately will not work and will even backfire, as so many of the MSM shenanigans have thus far.