Yesterday Atrios had a post calling attention to a brief Time Swampland blog posting by political reporter Karen Tumulty. And I do mean brief. In reference to the recently announced firing of GSA Head Lurita Doan (likely Hatch Act violator for asking staff what they could do to help assure the election of loyal bushies), Tumulty posted a single line...."What took so long?"
But as Atrios quickly noted, a Google search reveals that TIME itself had devoted exactly 0 words to that subject then or since it happened. Yet another example of the failure of the MSM to do its job.
Tumulty's post drew a sizable number of response posts, the vast majority of them critical, sometimes heatedly so, of the media's performance overall and Tumulty responded....finally in frustration...saying that she was going back to cover health care issues and leave the posters to "their bile." But what TIME apparently did next says volumes about their actions.....
They apparently excised the whole thread from their site.....
An attempt to locate it today via their own search mechanism turns up nothing. A search on Tumulty's name turns up a series of Swampland posts, but not the one from last night. Perhaps the reason why is because so much of what was said was a profound indictment of their failures.
Here is what I wrote before the posting was apparently axed:
There's an old adage for lawyers Karen...never ask a question of a witness unless you already know the answer.
In this case, you made the mistake of asking "Why it took so long for Ms. Doan to get fired," when you clearly weren't aware that TIME hadn't printed word one about her since her over the top funny testimony before Congress that she could remember absolutely nothing about the meeting at which witnesses had said she clearly violated the Hatch Act, but that she could remember that cookies were served.
Karen....I know you and other journalists must field tons of vituperation every day....I guess it comes with the territory.
But honest to God...can you somehow put yourself in the shoes of American citizens like us who have sat here for nearly eight years and watch their "elected" leader conduct the most incredible and continual litany of corruption, lies, favoritism, constitutional violations, contract fraud, and appointment of huge numbers of incompetents chosen only for their ideological purity while the two institutions best in a position to do something about it....the Congress and the Press essentially watch it pass by with essentially no action.
We are begging the traditional media to do their jobs....begging you and what do we see?
Just recently we see a network reveal that the highest levels of this administration, despite repeatedly lying to us all about the facts, engaged in detailed discussions about how to torture prisoners and were clearly, in fact, the driving force behind the abuses at Abu Ghraib and other secret and illegal prisons. And what did the rest of the media do with the story...NOTHING. In fact ABC, which broke the story, almost immediately turned to headlining its website with a story about a dog who found its way to its master's funeral.
What more can I say about two so-called network journalists spending nearly half of an entire Presidential debate totally ignoring just about every major issue the nation's voters are really concerned about.
What more can I say about a report that scores of retired military officials had been appearing for years on major media outlets as supposed independent analysts when in fact they were being paid to deliver the administration's lies justifying a war which is destroying us,....and the story gets essentially no mainstream coverage after it first appears?
What can I say when I read that a blog reporter had to spend well over a week with his hand in the air before Dana Perino would recognize him at a White House gaggle....and then only because another reporter courageously forced her to stop ignoring him. His questions were about the military analysts story. All that time, while he was trying to get recognized so he could ask a question which should have been asked immediately after the story broke, supposedly "professional" journalists from the networks, major newspapers, and big media outlets like TIME magazine NEVER asked those questions. Why?
Why is it only Helen Thomas who has the courage...and the tenacity to keep trying to ask the questions which should have been asked by all of you folks? Why when she turns around in the White House press room and looks at you and wonders when you are going to follow her lead, do you all apparently wind up staring at the ceiling?
And if you had any sense of embarrassment Karen, you might ask yourself why folks in the blogosphere, like Josh Marshall have been pressing and asking and probing and turning up the maneuvers of an administration bent on gutting the US Attorney system to put in place only party loyalists and to gut the Social Security program? Marshall truly deserves a Pulitzer for his work, yet your organization, with all of its high powered resources and supposed connections, has ignored that story and scores of others.
so Karen - hopefully you can now better understand the reasons for our "bile." In closing....let me ask you and the folks at TIME: What is taking you so long?
Interestingly enough, while the blog entry appears to have been excised and made unlocatable by search, it is still accessible via the atrios post.