Sure sounds like George and friends will have lots to explain in the near 
future. ;->

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




On Thu, 16 Feb 2006 12:59:19 -0600, Denys Beauchemin <[log in to unmask]> 
wrote:

>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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>
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