Maybe this whole James Guckert/Jeff Gannon business is a tempest in a teapot? I mean, isn't the real issue all the ways the Presidency has become more imperial and sealed off from the people, in what ostensibly is still a democracy? Yeah, I'm amused/outraged to learn that this White House gave a press pass to a ringer, but what about all those so-called professional journalists who ask nothing but softball questions, too? Anybody who doesn't know what I'm talking about ought to watch a tape of the president's infamous press conference on the eve of the Iraq War, when the peacocks of the press all stumbled over their ties and red dresses in abject acquiescence, afraid to pose a hard one for fear of offending the powers that be. Just because Guckert/Gannon (who certainly didn't deserve a press pass) is out, we shouldn't assume that the other "legitimate" reporters in the press room are asking questions that aren't also subtly shaped by the power of that institution. After all, the White House press office, whether controlled by a Democrat or a Republican, long ago learned that it could tame professional journalists by offering or withholding access, including threatening to push them to a back row or out of the press room entirely or off Air Force One. So, do we really expect any of these men and women of the Fourth Estate to prove that they're not all that different from "Jeff Gannon"?
Posted by msifry at February 11, 2005 05:27 PM