by Patrick Lang (bio below)


All you news junkies out there!! Count up on your fingers and toes the number of times this week you have heard anchors and “guests’ from the media mention the “White House Christmas Party for Journalists.”


Off-hand comments about what the president joked about, what Laura was wearing, who was there, little knowing smiles and insider smugness, that’s what we have been treated to this last week. Corporate media people and the “newsies” themselves evidently would throw themselves under the wheels of a Metro bus if they did not get an invitation. After all, how else would anyone in Washington, New York or Atlanta know they were important? Is that what happened to Hemmer and poor Aaron Brown? No invitation? Clearly, the money spent on that (or those) party(ies) is one of the best investments that any White House could ever make.


Amusing, but indicative of the incestuous relationships among the “power elite;” the “newsies,” lobbyists, members of Congress, West Wing types, PR people, and major financial interests. As the situation in Washington has developed (and now set into concrete) these groups are all really ONE group, and the way they barter, buy and sell the government and the information that provides a backdrop has become so solid that they can’t imagine any other way to “do business” (or bidness, if you prefer).


We now have major broadcast journalists sniggering on the air that “after all, this is how things are done” (meaning bribery of congressmen).


It will be interesting to see what happens to Abramoff. We should not feel too much personal animus toward him. He should be seen as merely a symbol of the continuing evolution of the journalistic/financial/lobbying/congressional/executive branch complex.


Pat Lang


Col. Patrick W. Lang (Ret.), a highly decorated retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Special Forces, served as “Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East, South Asia and Terrorism” for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and was later the first Director of the Defense Humint Service. Col. Lang was the first Professor of the Arabic Language at the United States Military Academy at West Point. For his service in the DIA, he was awarded the “Presidential Rank of Distinguished Executive.” He is a frequent commentator on television and radio, including MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann (interview), CNN and Wolf Blitzer’s Situation Room (interview), PBS’s Newshour, NPR’s “All Things Considered,” (interview), and more .


Personal Blog: Sic Semper Tyrannis 2005 || Bio || CV
Recommended Books || More BooTrib Posts

Novel: The Butcher’s Cleaver (download free by chapter, PDF format)


“Drinking the Kool-Aid,” Middle East Policy Council Journal, Vol. XI, Summer 2004, No. 2