Dear Editor,
I read your article "Obama press 'hijacked during' Clinton meeting" with mixed emotions. To be sure, Mr. Welch deserves praise for his article. Americans rely on the press to hold Senator Obama, as presumptive nominee, to the highest level of transparency. We deserve better from our party standard-bearers, regardless of whether the meeting between Senators Obama and Clinton had any direct policy implications.
But I am ultimately left to question, why now? It has not been two weeks since former Press Secretary Scott McClellan released comments from his forthcoming book in which he asserts that the national press corps was "too deferential" to the White House in regards to Iraq. According to McCllelan, "the country would have been better served" if the national media had lived up to their "reputation."
Indeed, it has only been a month and half since it came to light that retired Army general John Marks, an analyst for CNN from 2004 to 2007, was encouraged by the Pentagon to push pro-administration talking points in the media, while he was simultaneously pursuing military and intelligence contracts as a senior executive with McNeil Technologies.
I am left questioning the dichotomy. Your news organization appears ready to fight tooth-and-nail when stakes are minimal. And yet, when American lives hang in the balance, an ostensibly disappointing effort.
As Thomas Jefferson wrote, "The press is the only tocsin of a Nation." I am left to wonder what could have been if the media was as rigorous with the Bush administration on vital issues as Mr. Welch was in regards to a meeting between two politicians with few implications: five Americans have died in Iraq since June 1, adding to the more than four thousand who have given the last full measure of devotion since the beginning of the war effort.
I end this letter by again applauding Mr. Welch. I only humbly ask that in the future, your news organization earnestly commit to bringing sunlight to issues of national importance; that you take a similarly unyielding approach towards rooting out blights against transparency and the outright lies told by our policy makers; that you seek to fulfill your hallowed public duty upon which all Americans rely.
Best wishes,
Such Sweet Thunder