Irrelevant Beltway Reporters

3 Comments

1. 

   Oui on July 16, 2007 at 7:12 am

   .

   ‘Cindy Sheehan Street Debate’ (a little Friday afternoon entertainment)

   (TheBlueState) – In this video a guy confronts Cindy Sheehan, and acts as if he is loaded with facts. He actually makes himself look foolish and in one instance he tells a Vietnam Vet. to stop taking government money if he hates America so much. It’s classic when he says he’ll enlist if they needed him. And the truth is the Army does need him ‘Military Misses June Recruiting Goal‘. Typical unyielding pig headed conservative BS

   "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

2. 

   rdf on July 16, 2007 at 9:57 am

   Your mistake is think that those who work for broadcast outlets are “reporters”. The most visible ones are news readers and the ones in the field most transmit official statements from government and/or the media.

   Their idea of “reporting” is to turn up at a press conference and transcribe what is said. This extends beyond government. How many times have you seen some aggrieved citizen who shows up on the air to tell their story (and why they are seeking redress)? Somehow the same story shows up on all the networks at the same time.

   There is a nice series being run on PBS called “Exposé” which follows the work of reporters who actually do some some real reporting. The contrast is revealing. These people probably make 10% of the the glam guys and girls on TV make. The ones who go into TV are establishment types who like the status quo. The ones who do the hard slogging are the ones who challenge authority.

   So don’t expect to see much in the way of outspokenness on the networks.

3. 

   AP on July 16, 2007 at 10:30 am

   …to acting like a reporter:

   Mr. HADLEY: Well, of course, there’s a lot of thinking going on. And if you go back to the president’s speech of January 10th, 2007, where he laid out the new strategy, what he said was, `We want to move to a different place in Iraq, a different phase in Iraq, where the role of our security forces and our military will be different than it is now.’

   And the reason for his reinforcement strategy and for the extending population–security of the population was precisely to accelerate the day where we could contemplate that transition. So everybody’s looking at how we can get to a point where Iraq is in a different place and our role is different. The issue, Bob, is that in May the Congress of the United States set out a very orderly way to do that.

   And it starts with, in September, a series of reports on where we are in Iraq, both from the government and outside the government.

   SCHIEFFER: But…

   Mr. HADLEY: And a report from the commander in the field and our ambassador in the field, the guys who are charged with carrying out the existing strategy. That’s the point.

   SCHIEFFER: But, again–again, I say this with respect, they set out this policy, but it’s not working, Mr. Hadley.

   Mr. HADLEY: With all due respect, Bob, we think it is, and if you listen and observe the reports of what is happening on the security side, it is working. We are going into areas where al-Qaeda have had a safe haven, we are effective against them in disrupting their operation, and the political reconciliation, as the president said, is following in behind. You have tribal leaders in Sunni areas coming together, fighting against al-Qaeda, and beginning to put together local government structures. That is the element–you’re–what we are counting on is progress on the bottom up to support the process top-down.

   SCHIEFFER: Well, I will–I will give you one more–I’ll give you a chance, because we have to end this, but do you think that, come September, the situation in Iraq is going to look any different than it looks right now?

   Mr. HADLEY: I think it will. I think we will have had two additional months of our security strategy going forward. Now, since the last several weeks, with a full complement of forces, we think we will see progress on the security side. We hope we will see the bottom-up kind of reconciliation. But, the point is, the Congress set a schedule which basically said, `We need to do a review in September.’ Everybody agrees. `We’d like to put our policy there in a different place.’ Everybody agrees.

   SCHIEFFER: All right.

   Mr. HADLEY: Everybody also agrees the starting point is to hear from our commanders on the ground.

   SCHIEFFER: Well, I’m not sure I would agree that everybody believes that that’s the starting point, but I understand that’s your position. Thank you
   very much, Mr. Hadley.

   Mr. HADLEY: Thank you, sir.

   [Emphasis mine] Schieffer was almost pleading and tripping over himself to be “polite,” yet I’m shocked he admitted the obvious.

   That was better than Timmy, who failed to actually moderate between Jim Webb and the weaselly Lindsey Graham. No matter. Webb tore him a new one.