"The White House is not waging war on the press" Terry Moran, March 25, 2005
Last year I wrote a piece for Salon detailing how the Bush administration had effectively declared war on the press, noting how it was stifling the flow of information, paying off conservative pundits, subpoenaing reporters, inviting a former male escort to White House briefings without a proper FBI background check, sending out phony video press releases disguised as real news segments, bullying journalists and announcing the press corps was nothing more than just another special interest seeking access that served no special role in a democracy. After the piece ran a reporter for the San Diego Union-Tribune did a follow-up article and asked ABC's White House correspondent Terry Moran if indeed the White House had declared war on the press.
According to the newspaper, Moran "ridiculed" my thesis and, sounding more like a GOP consultant, waved off the suggestion with an everybody-does-it defense. "The White House is not waging war on the press any more than the Democratic National Committee or MoveOn.org are." (Note the absurdity of Moran comparing the all-powerful Republican-run White House to a scrappy liberal grass roots organization like MoveOn. Even so, Moran couldn't specify which mainstream pundits MoveOn had secretly added to its payroll, nor how many phony video newsreels MoveOn had sent to television stations nationwide.)
Moran's timorous reaction was entirely predictable though, since one of the tenets of the go-along/get-along MSM during the Bush era, at least for the first five years, was to steadfastly refuse to acknowledge the White House's unprecedented campaign to undermine the press for political gain. And if high-profile journalists did address the issue, it was usually done with a sense of awe, the way CBS's Bill Plante told American Journalism Review that despite being frustrated by the administration's closed approach to the media, he was "fascinated by how well they've been able to manage" the press."
As I wrote in "Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush," "Journalists were being actively undermined but seemed mesmerized by the takedown. Rather than resent the adminstration's brickbats, the press stood back respectfully, openly admiring the signature brand of hardball the White House was playing with the press."
In other words, a bizarre love-hate relationship developed--the White House hated the press and the press loved the Bush White House. It reflected the Beltway media's undying respect for GOP hardball; a respect that was non-existent during the previous Democratic administration. (Just try to imagine the shrieking that would have vibrated across the cable television landscape if the Clinton White House dared, for just one day, to push reporters around the way they've been manhandled since Bush's arrival in 2001.)
Now fast forward to the summer of SWIFT, with Bush singling out the New York Times for public scorn (again), Republicans in Congress actually voting on a resolution condemning the newspaper, and wingers online vowing to "hunt down" treasonous liberal editors and reporters who deserved to be "sent to the gas chamber." I suspect only the most somnambulant correspondent--or perhaps Terry Moran--would deny Bush and the Republican Party have declared war on the press.
Sad part is lapdog journalists are partly blame for the current onslaught. Can't say they weren't warned.