You know, it’s somehow fitting that this is all going down on Super Tuesday, given that probably no one will be giving a fuck political or otherwise about the FISA sitch besides the people who pushed it in the first place, ie Dodd and his happy few. I can’t see Wolf Blitzer stopping coverage of the Clinton/Obama bitchfest to throw a few minutes the way of a debate about the future of civil liberties in this country. Maybe he’ll surprise me, but I’m not exactly setting the TiVo, is what I’m saying.
It’s a cardinal rule of the journalism I practice that you be where others aren’t. I’ve always worked for smaller papers, the second or third or eighth in the market, and the only way you beat the big guys and their big money and their big influence is to be where they’re not. To be on the story nobody’s looking at yet, so that by the time they come around to jumping in it you’ve already got it locked up. Sometimes you’re able to do that, sometimes you’re not, but the point is to be there first, laying the groundwork, so that you know ahead of time what everybody else has to flounder around to catch up on. A day’s head start is a lifetime in that world, and a week’s head start is damn near insurmountable.
Part of why I got out of journalism, newspaper journalism, and into this had to do with the fact that I wanted to be where people weren’t yet, and talk about the kinds of things that just weren’t being talked about back in 2002, 2003, 2004, hell even 2005 when the rest of the world decided to wake the fuck up to the fact that this preznit, not so much with the life skills. Part of what we’re supposed to be doing here is talking about the things that aren’t getting talked about off in the land of Wolf and Tim and Chris and Candy, so really, the point isn’t that they’re missing it. The point is that we’re not. It’s not too late to get ahead of the curve on this one. Call your senators. Be the people who were paying attention to this, before everybody else with the lights and the mikes showed up.
A.
There’s an online web comic that actually captures the whole wiretapping and telecom involvement brilliantly. It uses a mega-corporation (a Mircosoft analog run by and actual demon with vampires for lawyers) instead of the government, but the attitude is dead on:
Wiretapping philosophy:
Why they want to wiretap and
why they think they can.
And this is a perfect summary of theactions the telecom want immunity for.
(These three were posted in that order, so you can just go to the first link and click the NEXT button.)
Apparently now the Justice Department is going after journalists for whistleblowing, since they revealed things the Bush Administration didn’t want the public to know. Spencer Ackerman at the Washington Independent wrote “The right response from the press, and the public, is to put one arm around [accused journalist Jim] Risen and, with the other arm, extend a single finger in the direction of the Justice Department.” I must say I’m completely cool with that.
Joe McCarthy’s ghost is laughing his evil head off somewhere — can you say “chilling effect”? I knew you could.
Ah thanks for the happy Dodd photo Athenae. I remember that morning really well – it was our first event with Paul Simon in Iowa and the Dodd staff was really stoked. We packed about 150 people into the back room of a buffet place. Press and staff and Iowans were overflowing.
In this picture Paul Simon is telling a fascinating story of how he and Dodd first met. They were serving as American representatives on a trip to monitor Czechoslovakia’s first democratic election. Here’s a video ofPaul Simon’s introduction of Dodd that morning. It’s pretty hilarious.
Thanks for bringing me back to that day A.