Reply #9: Thanks. I find it utterly reprehensible the GROSS dereliction of duty

[calimary]

they're all passing off as news coverage these days. Just disgraceful! I don't CARE if they're frightened or intimidated or bullied. If that's the case, WHATTHEFUCK is wrong with THEIR managers, supervisors, and editors - reassign the timid one and bring on somebody who goes for the jugular and gets the job done? You don't think for one instant that there aren't thousands of eager "gee, I could do that job better than..." journalism students and reporters from smaller markets DYING for the chance to move up the food chain, who couldn't knock those simpering weenies in the presidential kneepad brigades out of the ballpark? Which means those in supervisory positions need some - um - reeducation, too, I guess.

I can STILL hear the bellowing of my supervisor in my cell phone - WHY didn't you ask... or WHY didn't you press them for... or some such thing (which happened only a few times - you learn pretty quickly to forge ahead so you don't keep getting reamed like that). Let's just say if I cowered in my job and just skated around the edges and didn't try to go for it, I'D certainly have been replaced.

And WHATTHEFUCK is the matter with the folks in the White House Press Corpse that they can't figure out some sneaky little side-door way to broach some difficult Do-Not-Touch subject, so you at least get some meatier soundbite, or you get bush or snotty in a huff and walking out, or you get some "no comment" or flustered in-yer-face aggression (that makes THEM look bad, NOT you - and might even be a better, juicier quote than the more straightforward answer or denial you'd expect to get) as a response? I had to do that ALL THE TIME - figure out some OTHER way to get at the same question that might elicit some useful soundbite, if I knew I was going to get stonewalled by asking a more direct question.

For those who claim they dare not rock the boat or face losing that bigtime fancy-ass job with the big salary, I'd question what they've been doing to sock some of those big paychecks away in savings or something - for a rainy day that might come in an angry firing because your supervisor was living in cheney's back pocket and ordered to can your impertinent, uppity ass for asking too many questions. What's wrong with making use of that to get another job as the gutsiest reporter in Washington, or write a tell-all book about it and go on the talk show/lecture/speakers' circuit (where you can make a LOT more)? Or start your own blog? Or become a consultant or something. You'd have made enough of a name for yourself that you wouldn't be that ignorable or radioactive. I mean, here in L.A. there's a radio news anchor who got fired several times from the same place for different transgressions through the years - and guess who's still on the air - back on the same station (under different management) again? This person will always find a home on the air somewhere. Who cares that he/she got sent to the doghouse for awhile? Who even remembers? He/she's back on the air - at the same place, AGAIN. So much for "you'll never eat lunch in this town again." That's just bullshit.

Besides, I'd venture to say that in THIS day and age, when the polls DO INDEED show, consistently over a long time now, that people no longer believe bush or trust him OR his judgment OR competence, you might not make quite a good name for yourself (making yourself more fireproof) if you started turning the heat up on him and his henchmen. David Gregory isn't doing too badly these days, and his head isn't anywhere near the chopping block.

The polls now show, consistently and over quite a while - that bush is NO LONGER NEGOTIATING FROM A POSITION OF STRENGTH. It boggles my mind why more reporters don't seize on that and go for the jugular with him. THEY'VE got the upper hand now. He doesn't, anymore, 'cause he's squandered it along with all that fabled "political capital." I don't know why they're still afraid to make waves. NOW IS A PERFECT TIME TO DO JUST THAT!!!

And it's not as though he hasn't provided them with any material.