Well said Jay.  I think you will ejoy the following article, 
entitled "The Shooting Party", from Tony Blankley of The Washington 
Times.

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060214-102148-1710r.htm


The Shooting Party.

In the absence of any pressing news these days — other than Iran's 
nuclear weapons development crisis, the election of Hamas terrorists 
in Palestine, on-going worldwide Muslim riots and killing in reaction 
to a cartoon, Al Gore's near sedition while speaking in Saudi Arabia, 
the turning over of our East Coast ports to be managed by a United 
Arab Emirates firm, the criminal leaking of vital NSA secrets to the 
New York Times, Mexican military incursions across our southern 
border, the Iraqi crisis, Congress's refusal to deal with the 
developing financial collapse of Social Security and Medicare, inter 
alia — the White House press corps has exploded in righteous fury over 
the question of the vice president's little shooting party last 
weekend. 
    As I understand the profound concern of the ever alert White House 
reporters, they smell a constitutional crisis because the shooting 
party failed to alert the media of the accidental shooting down in 
Corpus Christi, Texas. Well, actually they did alert the Corpus 
Christi media — but that didn't count. Unless the exalted ones have 
been formally informed by an official government press secretary, no 
public communication has technically occurred. 
    I checked the bylaws of the White House press corps, and they are 
right. It seems that the bylaws refer to Article XXIII of the U.S. 
Constitution which expressly designates that White House reporters 
with a minimum annual income of $375,000 (plus minimum stock options 
equal to not less than two-thirds their yearly salary, plus use of 
driver and long sedan during business hours, which hours must include 
post-deadline dinner engagements of a semi-social nature) are the 
exclusive recipients of all government information. 
    If information isn't hand-delivered in gold-edged paper to them 
while they are reclined on their chaise longue, it hasn't been 
released to the public. And if they don't report a fact, it hasn't 
happened. This provision is vital to a vigorous and independent free 
press. (I should note, my copy of the Constitution must be outdated, 
because it doesn't have an Article XXIII.) 
    Of course, this provision technically makes the White House press 
corps not reporters, but receivers — sort of glorified shipping 
clerks, but with the prerogative to rewrite and repackage the material 
before they deliver it to the public. 
    When an out-of-town newspaper got the scoop, the dignity of the 
White House press corps had been impeached, so they threw a public 
temper tantrum. As that has worked for many of them since their early 
childhood, they obviously expect it to work while on the job — to use 
the term loosely. 
    To add to their indignity, the reporter for The Washington Post 
went on MSNBC dressed up in a hunting costume to ridicule the vice 
president. (It is said that the enfeebled and debased French Dauphin, 
Charles VII, dressed in women's clothing to hide from Joan of Arc, who 
was trying to save France.) 
    I suppose most of us, as we rise in life, develop a sense of 
entitlement and pompous dignity. Doubtless we all think we are more 
important than we are. 
    As Charles de Gaulle once sardonically observed while walking past 
a graveyard: "that place is full of indispensable men." 
    But the Washington press corps, and particularly the White House 
press corps, has developed, as an institution, a grossly dilated view 
of itself. Most of us can tolerate arrogance, if it is accompanied by 
extraordinary capacity and virtuosity. The brilliant scientist, the 
war-winning general, the great artists are entitled to their pride. 
    But the hallmark of the Washington press corps these days is 
mediocrity, groupthink, a lack of curiosity and rampant careerism. 
These attributes were all on show in the shooting-party incident. But 
this is just a trivial incident — except for the poor, shot gentleman 
who suffered a heart attack, may he recover fully and quickly. 
    We live at a moment of revolutionary change in the international 
order. The rise and violenceofradical,possibly caliphate-forming Islam 
and the huge, culture-changing, unexamined consequences of rampant 
globalization make the present one of the least predictable moments to 
be alive. 
    Both government officials and citizens are in desperate need of a 
national press corps that is alive to the change and digging to find 
factual hints of the near future. We need the kind of future-oriented 
intellectual vigor, curiosity and genuine iconoclasm that typified 
American reporters in the first half of the last century. 
    Instead, as the shooting-party incident exemplified, we have in 
the White House at the most elite level of American journalism, self-
absorbed, self-important men and women who stand on their prerogatives 
even over marginal and inconsequential matters. 
    Should they ever have a truly daring, creative, productive, hard-
researched idea about what is going on in this dangerous world — they 
should alert the media. 




Denys

----- Original Message -----
From: Jay Maynard <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thursday, February 16, 2006 12:01 pm
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] OT: News Flash and more
To: [log in to unmask]

> On Thu, Feb 16, 2006 at 10:51:02AM -0500, Michael Baier wrote:
> > I'd concede that the vice president is probably not their 
> favorite 
> > politician. But in terms of it "mattering" -- did it matter to 
> the average 
> > American that Bill Clinton was fooling around on his wife,
> 
> Once again, the Left obscures the issue.
> 
> The issue was not htat Clinton was fooling around on Hillary.
> The issue was that Clinton committed a felony in office.
> 
> > or that Vince Foster committed suicide
> 
> That's just the issue: there's plenty of reason to believe Foster 
> didn'tcommit suicide.
> 
> No, the real reason the Left is up in arms about this is that it's 
> anotherreason to vilify two of their favorite targets at the same 
> time: the Bush
> administration and guns.
> -- 
> Jay Maynard, K5ZC                    http://www.conmicro.cx
> http://jmaynard.livejournal.com      http://www.tronguy.net
> http://www.hercules-390.org               (Yes, that's me!)
> Buy Hercules stuff at http://www.cafepress.com/hercules-390
> 
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