The Daily Howler has consistently served as a much-needed gadfly on the "Mainstream Media" for the past several years. Bob Somerby's specialty is pointing out how dismally incompetent and ineffective many reporters can be when covering significant news.
Now Somerby is expressing disdain and a lack of interest in the Jeff Gannon / JD Guckert story.
Because I think Somerby is missing the point of that story, and because it would be a loss to our side if a persistent rift opened up between him and what he calls the "liberal web," I offer the following open letter to The Daily Howler.
Dear Howler,
Yours is a favorite site of mine, one to which I have consistently linked for more than a year.
Over and over again, during the time I've been a reader, you have professed amazement at how "hapless" members of the press are. At times you have seemed surprised by how poorly they do their job.
It has certainly been a great mystery to many of us how our press could possibly be so lazy, inept, useless. Perhaps that has also been a mystery to you.
Now, because of the Armstrong Williams and Jeff Gannon stories, we know that many of our reporters are not really so stupid, innocent and ineffective.
Instead, it appears that they have been bought, probably in significant numbers, by right wing political operatives. Sometimes, as in the case of Armstrong Williams, this was done with crude direct payments in return for telling a particular story which the Bush Administration wanted to issue from the mouth of a credible source.
But in many cases, the payments and compensations have surely been more careful, the acts of bribery accomplished using subtler methods.
The precise details still remain shrouded in secrecy. But understanding those details could be enormously important to our country, so that we can expose this dangerous corruption and prevent its re-occurrence.
Although Gannon himself is, as you have suggested, just one very small and ugly potato, that does not necessarily mean his story is unimportant. Because the abuse involved in his privileged treatment is so blatant and so poorly concealed, the investigation of Gannon and his connections might be the key to finding those crucial missing details about how, and by whom, the great press buy-off was accomplished.
That's why the story of Jeff Gannon really is important.
Best regards,
Ralph Dratman
I will also take this opportunity to compliment SusanG on her superb writing in connection with the Gannon story. The failure of our press corps is by far the most important political problem we face in this country. Our constitutional system was designed to handle presidents like George W. Bush, who simply needs to be impeached immediately.
But our system was not designed to operate in the face of massive, scripted ignorance on the part of a public which is systematically being denied access to accurate news reporting.
In fact, no system of responsive government can possibly operate in a knowledge vacuum. How are citizens supposed to know whom they should support or vote for if they are being fed inaccurate or censored information?
In that respect, I submit that, because the press should be our eyes and ears, and because that press has now been totally compromised by partisan political operatives, We are now this man.
The above photo also illustrates why, if only for selfish reasons, we
must guard the civil liberties even of people we believe to be totally different from ourselves.
As their rights are taken away, so will ours be.