Who Us?
by digby
Here’s Gwen Ifill being snotty to a blogger asking a perfectly legitimate question:
Many people believe the press failed to do its job in the run up to the Iraq war. Has Beltway reporting changed as a result?
I am not sure what you mean by “Beltway reporting.” Do you mean the New York Times reporting that exposed the Justice Department’s wireless wiretapping? The Washington Post reporting that exposed the poor conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center? Or do you mean the reporting done by Pentagon reporters from the frontlines in Iraq and Afghanistan? I continue to maintain that, on balance, reporters tell us more than we would otherwise know, and that the breadth and importance of the stories we break, easily outnumber the ones we miss.
Uhm no. He’s asking about the embarrassing cheerleading for that cretinous moron George W. Bush and suppression of dissent that got us into that misbegotten hellhole of a war, you preening twit.
There are a few villagers who commonly spout more conventional wisdom with more arrogance and superiority than Ifill, but not many. That’s why she’s on everybody who’s anybody’s short list to run Meet The Press. She wouldn’t destroy it quite as dramatically as she’s destroyed Washington Week in Review, but that’s only because the show is already such a gossipy, insider, shallow circle jerk that she can’t do much more damage than Russert already did.
But Ifill isn’t unusual. In fact, she’s saying what they all think: because there are great reporters out there like Dana Priest and James Risen, there is no need to even question whether the other 99% of what passes for political journalism is even worth wrapping a dead fish in. Why should they? It’s clear that you can have an incredibly lucrative and successful career as a celebrity gasbag without ever having an original thought in your head. In fact, it’s a requirement.
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