[NV Greens] Fwd: [usgp-dx] Freedom of the Press a la Bush

[Paul Etxeberri]

>
>
>
>Hi:  Just when you think it can hardly get any worse under Mr. Bush, it
>does. Now the administration is assigning "minders" to American
>journalists. Sort of like the minders that the Saddam regime assigned to
>us when we were in Baghdad four years ago.  Isn't this what they call
>"convergence?"  Peace. Richard Walton, RI.  P.S.  This appeared in today's
>  The Progressive Review, Sam Smith's indispensable lefty rag.
>
>OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE POLITICS
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46409-2005Jan29.html
>
>PAUL FARHI, WASHINGTON POST - Now the art of press handling has evolved
>into actual manhandling. The Bush team has expanded the use of "minders,"
>employees or volunteers who escort journalists from interview to interview
>within a venue or at a newsworthy event.
>
>It's not an entirely new phenomenon -- the Clinton administration baby-sat
>reporters from time to time -- but the president's inaugural committee
>took it to new levels of silliness during the various presidential balls.
>Several reporters covering the balls were surprised to find themselves
>being monitored by young "escorts," who followed them from hors d'oeuvres
>table to dance floor and even to the bathroom. . .
>
>I had arrived early to get a head start on mingling among the roughly
>6,000 people eating and dancing to celebrate the president's reelection.
>Unaware of the new escort policy (it wasn't in place during the official
>parties following the 2001 inauguration), I blithely assumed that in the
>world's freest nation, I was free to walk around at will and ask the happy
>partygoers such national security-jeopardizing questions as, "Are you
>having a good time?"
>
>Big mistake. After cruising by the media pen -- a sectioned-off area
>apparently designed for corralling journalists -- a sharp-eyed volunteer
>spotted my media badge. "You're not supposed to go out there without an
>escort," she said.
>
>I replied that I had been doing just fine without one, and walked over to
>a quiet corner of the hall to phone in some anecdotes to The Post's Style
>desk.
>
>As I was dictating from my notes, something flashed across my face and
>neatly snatched my cell phone from of my hand. I looked up to confront a
>middle-aged woman, her face afire with rage. "You ignored the rules, and
>I'm throwing you out!" she barked, snapping my phone shut. "You told that
>girl you didn't need an escort. That's a lie! You're out of here!"
>
>With the First Amendment on the line, my natural wit did not fail me.
>"Huh?" I answered.
>
>Recovering quickly, I explained that I had been unaware of the escort
>policy. She was unbending and ordered a couple of security guards to
>hustle me out. I appealed to them, saying that I was more than happy to
>follow whatever ground rules had been laid down. They shrugged, and
>deposited me back in the media pen. . .
>
>But this isn't really about me. It's about . . . you. Consider that the
>escorts weren't there to provide security; all of us had already been
>through two checkpoints and one metal detector. They weren't there to keep
>me away from, Heaven forbid, a Democrat or a protester; those folks were
>kept safely behind rings of fences and concrete barriers. Nor were the
>escorts there to admonish me for asking a rude question of the partying
>faithful, or to protect the paying customers from the prying media. . .
>
>No, the minders weren't there to monitor me. They were there to let the
>guests, my sources on inaugural night, know that any complaint, any
>unguarded statement, any off-the-reservation political observation, might
>be noted. But maybe someday they'll be monitoring something more important
>than an inaugural ball, and the source could be you.
>
>
>	"The only way out of our crisis (terrorism) is to reduce the 
>anger of the
>most rational, thus also reducing the constituency of the least rational."
>  Sam Smith.
>
>	"When they come for the innocent without crossing over
>your body, cursed be your religion and your life."  Anon.  But often
>quoted by Dorothy Day.
>--
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>"Richard Walton" <richard at soup.org>
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>
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-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand