@ b:
i VandeHei, today a WaPo White House reporter is a former aid to Tom DeLay …
When was VandeHei an aid to Tom DeLay?

Posted by: crone | Dec 13 2005 23:49 utc | 4

supposedly it was vandehei’s wife who used to work for delay. unsourced references here and here.

Posted by: b real | Dec 14 2005 4:44 utc | 6

firedoglake is covering this and links to swopa, apparently harris is a bit of a dog. so much for wapo.

Posted by: annie | Dec 14 2005 8:21 utc | 8

As Josh Marshall points out the WaPo Executive Editor has given away in E&P why he too wants to at least change Froomkin’s column title.

“We want to make sure people in the [Bush] administration know that our news coverage by White House reporters is separate from what appears in Froomkin’s column because it contains opinion,” Downie told E&P. “And that readers of the Web site understand that, too.”

First priority/(loyality?): the Bush administration, then the reader …

Posted by: b | Dec 14 2005 11:23 utc | 10

Live: PATRIOT Act: Watch the house Action right NOW!

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 14 2005 17:58 utc | 12

Let me tell you something. The White House Press Corpse has NEVER asked Bush how many Iraqis have died during this illegal war. I guess that falls to the realm of conjecture or editorializing, or opinion or something. Nope, we want the Press Corpse to stick to facts, Ma’am, just the facts, like how Al Gore looked in all brown, or how he said that he invented the internet, or how determined Bush appears, etc. etc.
This is the Corpse of the Walking Dead, and until somebody calls it on its interminable lies, it will hide beneath the roiling grey cloud of “facts” and impartiality. Fuck’em.

Posted by: Malooga | Dec 15 2005 3:25 utc | 14

Robert Fisk shows us he isn’t only perceptive with ME issues when he addresses the lame way the MSM in the US has failed to confront power. An Independent column by Fisk says:

“In New York and Los Angeles, my condemnation of the American presidency and Israel’s continued settlement-building in the West Bank was originally treated with the disdain all great papers reserve for those who dare to question proud and democratic projects of state. In The New York Times, that ancient luminary Ethan Bonner managed to chide me for attacking American journalists who — he furiously quoted my own words — “report in so craven a fashion from the Middle East — so fearful of Israeli criticism that they turn Israeli murder into ‘targeted attacks’ and illegal settlements into ‘Jewish neighborhoods’.”
It was remarkable that Bonner should be so out of touch with his readers that he did not know that “craven” is the very word so many Americans apply to their groveling newspapers (and quite probably one reason why newspaper circulations are falling so disastrously).”

An in an interview whilst on tour launching his new book he gets the the heart of the matter with

“For years now journalism has been cabined, cribbed, confined into a straightjacket of rules made in the 1940s in the original journalism schools in the U.S. These schools were introduced to train reporters for local newspapers. And if you’re dealing with a dispute about a highway, public or private property for an airport, it is essential to give protesters equal time with those who want to open a new airport. In a court case, it’s essential to give equal time to the defense and the prosecution.
If you’re dealing with local journalism of this kind — a public inquiry, a legal case, a battle over a new hospital — both sides have the right because this is not a moral issue. It is a moral issue insofar as the community deserves a good hospital and private homeowners deserve privacy without having to worry about government projects, but there isn’t a great burning passionate moral issue of human life, the taking of life, war.
In these circumstances it is correct to make sure everyone is equally represented. But in foreign affairs, in a part of the world that is cloaked in injustice, where thousands are torn apart and shredded by weapons every year, you’re entering a new kind of world. One in which the standards of neutrality used in a small-town court case fall by the wayside because they are no longer relevant.
When you see child victims piled up at the site of a massacre it’s not the time to give equal time to the murderers. If you were covering the slave trade in the 19th century, you wouldn’t give 50 per cent to the slave ship captain; you would focus on the slaves who died and on the survivors. If you are present at the liberation of an extermination camp in Nazi Germany, you don’t search out the SS for 50 per cent of the comment. “

I believe Fisk is too kind because there is a tendency in the increasingly conservative media around the planet to ‘unbalance’ stories under the cloak of ‘balance’. This most blatantly effected on TV. Researchers appear to go great lengths to find those whose opinions many would share, but who are inarticulate; then line them up against an experienced and battle hardened conservative ‘talent’.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Dec 15 2005 5:05 utc | 16

That reaction to wapo’s political editor Roger Harris that b linked to above is quite amazing if only because there are literally hundreds of posts supportive of Froomkin and scathing of Harris and his team’s inability to question the BushCo agenda.
There are NO posts (that I could see ) supportive of Harris or the conservative perspective. It’s a Wapo blog so I think we can assume that if it is moderated the moderaters would have gone to great lengths to ensure that the BushCo fanboys had an opportunity to be heard, if they had contributed.
Perhaps the tide has turned in the US which is great but I still believe that far too many imagine that this problem can be fixed by swapping one middle aged whitefellla for another. Which may delay the slaughter a little but won’t prevent it.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Dec 15 2005 10:41 utc | 18

@Flashharry – I guess you think of this passage

From what I can tell, there’s not a word about Bush’s no-show — or anything about the conference at all — in The Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, or even on the Associated Press or Reuters wires.

(Today Froomkin took back his words in regard to USA Today. They had mentioned Bush absence in one sentence).
He really did stick it to the print people there. The Harris folks only report on Bush, not about Bush. It´s an amazing face loss for the print reporters and they know. Let’s hope it helps them to grow some backbone.

Posted by: b | Dec 16 2005 0:11 utc | 20

Kinda amazing really. The wheels are coming off it’s just seems to take longer than it actually does.
The great proponents of democracy and freedom of speech have got their panties in a knot attempting to suppress debate and democracy yet the harder they try the more obvious their ineptitude becomes.
The mainstream media are doing what they can to help the corrupt old white men and their sycophants ‘keep the lid on the truth’ even if it means sticking mattresses around the walls to shut out the shouts of anger from the masses.
Their pals in the print media have decided that their job as political reporters is to follow a few select middle aged white men around and report their every move that has been organised, checked and focus-group tested by ‘staffers’ beforehand.
Perhaps someone should pitch full coverage on the “Presidential Bowel Movement” to CBS. Just tell em that Fox has this one in the pipeline (LOL) and they’ll jump at it.
Ten minutes every two hours of shit to put on between the stuff that pays the rent and it can be called news so the federal regulators don’t slobber all over the channel with their shrivelled gums.
Breaking News: “The president in an obvious insult to the terrorist enemies of democracy has taken to wiping his ass with his right hand. Astute white house watchers will know that this is a deliberate snub to PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas who we can see shaking hands with our President this morning prior to Abbas’ attempt to blackmail the US with his outrageous claims about the small security fence Israelis have been forced to construct to stop suicide bombers murdering Israelis.
Pentagon shit strategist General Rube Prick (Rtd) had this to say “Well Jenny this an obvious continuation of the strategy that President Bush began last week when he took the radical move of tearing off four portions instead of the standard two that we have become accustomed to seeing the President use to wipe his ass with.”
“Why is that General Prick?”
“Well this stage of the war is about symbolism Jenny. Four pieces means that President Bush’s lily whites don’t get stained which is important. After all having a leader continually washing his hands scores very low in all our focus groups and quite frankly bottoms out with our good christian friends.
The insult will still be there but Abbas won’t have a leg to stand on if he goes whining about this strategy being in breach of the Geneva Convention on germ warfare. President Bush can prove he has operated in a thoroughly hygenic way.”
Phew got lost there for a moment. The stories and spins are becoming more outrageous and less credible. It’s pretty much got to the stage where the traditional repug base won’t vote against the party but they won’t vote for it either. They’ll just turn their backs on the process until all the bad stuff goes away.
It’s not working because people don’t want to be spoon fed anywore. That only worked when the kids didn’t know mom was grinding glass in the mouli.
Of course that doesn’t help any Iraqis because the other faction of the Party is completely bereft.
But it sure beats getting into a blue with some stupid paid mis-communicator assidualously telling half-truths about something he lacks the intellect or the will to comprehend.
Still job well done Annie and Giap. It’s always a bit tough on the security when these two-pot screamers go out for their annual Xmas drink.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Dec 16 2005 1:42 utc | 22