So now, only 4 years late to the game, the press is crying that they feel violated by Dear Leader and his voyeuristic tendencies. At least that is what Brian Ross, Chief Investigative Correspondent for ABC is now saying, when he went on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” and whined about being spied on by the Bushistas:
[I]t makes me feel, in a way — and this is, I think, the disturbing part — as if we are drug dealers or terrorists trying to traffic in information, and should we be using bags full of quarters like old Mafia capos to avoid having our phone calls traced? I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong; I don’t think any other reporter is, either. We’re trying to cover these stories, which are difficult, but which are very important.
Yeah, well whaddaya know, Brian – you and your press cohorts have allowed this situation to get to this point, and have been ignoring, nay, pissing on We the People, for four years now. And NOW you want to call bullshit – when you are finally impacted?
Too little, too late, Brian. I don’t want to hear it.
Oh, so you feel like you are being treated as terrorists or drug dealers. What happened to “if I have nothing to hide, then why should I care if I am being spied on?” Suddenly that doesn’t apply? Where were you when there were rumblings about illegal wiretapping or other spying going on just after 2001? What happened to all of your little “people are ok with being illegally spied on” polls?
What about when your buddies Karl and Scooter wanted to feed you illegal information about covert CIA activities in order to smear a political opponent? Why was it ok for Russert, Tweety and Andrea Mitchell to pretend for nearly three years that everything was just peachy, when you were part of the covering up of this information? Where was your journalistic integrity back then when it was ok to print classified information and not only deny ever being involved but also sit in a comfy TV studio week after week pretending that you knew nothing?
Why was it ok to print lies that were passed on secretly to you like notes in a classroom about an “imminent attack” that you didn’t even bother to verify? Where was your outrage when you were strongarmed into becoming a mouthpiece for policies of death, destruction and utter disregard for human lives?
Oh, sure, you can cry foul now when you find out that you were being spied on or monitored. But where the hell were you when this story first broke before the 2004 election? Why did the NY Times hide this news until early 2005, when the story was known about for nearly a year before that?
Why didn’t you call bullshit when your journalist colleagues around the world were being kidnapped, targeted and killed in Iraq? Why didn’t you speak out then? Isn’t it your job to report the truth? To say “enough is enough”? To make sure that your sources and stories are protected while reporting the truth as opposed to the propaganda lines being spoon fed to you by the neocons?
What about when you were being flat out lied to by Ari Fleischer, then Scott McLellan and now Tony Snow? What about printing the stories of lies, half-truths (at best), word parsing and general disregard and disgust for your questions? How about when there was a (gasp…) gay prostitute pretending to be a bona fide journalist who was getting all of the air time at the press gaggles? Where were you then – why didn’t you report about that?
How about when others of your own were being paid handsome sums by this administration to push policies of this administration – why did you bury that story? Or not reporting the fact when administration officials changed the written conclusions of scientific experts?
Is it ok to become such a lapdog of this administration that it was ok for you to nearly let two of your colleagues (and actually let one) go to prison in order to protect indicted administration officials over a leak of national security information? Seems to me that this situation that you now find yourself in has more than a little to do with the fact that you sit back and gleefully parrot what you are told to report while chasing down every little detail about the latest “missing white girl” story.
Where is your backbone while more and more of our brave young men and women are sent off to die for a lie? Where our governmental officials don’t provide our soldiers with enough ammo, armor or other supplies?
Last (for now) and CERTAINLY not least, where were you when the 2000, 2002 and 2004 election seasons were filled with lies and smears? When there were thousands of published and anecdotal reports of fraud, intimidation, “irregularities” and suppression? Don’t you think that your lack of doing your job and trying to stop this huge power grab has contributed to your predicament? Did you think for one second that you would emerged untouched by the overreaching illegal activities by those who you helped put and keep in charge?
If you stood up to the criminals that are running this country at any of these points in time, then maybe, just maybe someone would feel for you. We have been living under suppressed rights, lower real wages, cuts in healthcare and educational services for years now. We have been screaming that these violations have been occurring for years now.
You chose to not report it. You chose to mock the left blogosphere as “hysterical”. As “alarmists”. As “fringe”. Well, now you are impacted by the illegal activities that you have been warned about for years.
It sucks, doesn’t it?
Yeah, we know. We have known for a long time now. So, try and do your jobs now. But don’t you dare whine about it – when you did absolutely nothing to stop it and everything to help get to this point.
Now do your fucking jobs already.
