REPORT it don't MAKE it!

Thank you PRESIDENT BUSH for speaking yesterday with the passion and zeal that I know you have. Thank you for showing the emotion that has been lacking in your speeches for the past couple of months. Thank you most of all for being tough with that wrinkly bag-of-sass Helen Thomas; she really needs to retire!

It's been roughly 18 days since my last post; for that, I am sorry. There were midterms, followed by a stressful week of hoping and waiting for grades, followed by good news about said grades, followed by a death in the family, then spring break. Now I have today off for a city-wide water main break and that's ok with me. (Just as a side note, I said last night that Shepherd University was making a mistake by closing the University at about 9pm last night in anticipation of the water not being back on until sometime this after noon--water has been on since at least 5 am this morning...)

Anyway, I have been looking for a few days for a way to jump back in, but nothing has really caught my attention as being something which I had not covered yet. Last night I found something. Helen Thomas and that damn know-it-all White House Press Corps have to be some of the most obnoxious human beings on the planet. While this is not news to most people, I still want to address it.

My 'beef' with Thomas and the rest of the Corps does not lie solely in their treatment of Bush. If we remember back to a few weeks ago to a time when some important events were beginning (such as the Ports deal, the release of tapes of Saddam Hussein discussing WMD's [which I still haven't heard much about] and other issues of distinction) were overshadowed by VP Cheney's hunting accident, we can examine the Press Corps a little bit. Their reaction to Cheney's accident lie not in what he did--awkward and bizarre as it may have been--but in the fact that he did not call them before he even called 911 to get emergency help for the wounded man. The snobbery that they practice is astounding. God knows that they are the best and most important group of journalists ever to walk the earth, thus they needed to be contacted immediately. Here's a news flash: You (Press Corps dummies) are NOT more important than that man's life. You are journalists, people!

These folks offer us a snapshot of the wider problem with journalists: Nobody wants to do a little investigative reporting. If THEY wanted to know what happened on DICK CHENEY'S hunting trip then THEY should have been there, not waiting for him to call and give them an update.

This sickening behavior seems to be a trend. The school newspaper on campus his horrific about it. Interview a few friends or acquaintances and there's the story! If a more serious story is at hand, simply give the information that everybody already knows anyway and say "more information will be available at a later date." Why at a later date? Because the journalist was too lazy to make a phone call to obtain all the needed facts. This laziness is not limited to small news papers. The White House Press Corps thought Cheney should call them about it--tell them everything they needed to write a full report on an ACCIDENT. And who could forget RatherGate (or whatever goofy name was given to it)? Rather, one of the all-time leading journalists, couldn't even bring himself to do a little investigation. He just made the facts up. We need the return of the investigative reporter. And we need it badly.

My second 'beef' with Thomas and the rest of those hoodlums is their complete and total lack of respect for the Presidency. I did not (and do not) like Bill Clinton--neither his politics, nor his private life. I do not like him with a fox. I do not like him in a box. I do not like him Sam-I-Am. I don't like his wife either, but if she were to win in '08, I will respect her as the President of the United States. Make no mistake about it, the US President is the most powerful individual in the world and deserves some respect. If there is a future President Hillary, I will listen to what she has to say without booing her (like Ted "Jabba" Kennedy did to Bush); I might not believe everything she has to say, but I will listen and I will think and research what she presents us and then make my decision.

The respect for the presidency has been lost. O'Reilly touched on it last night. He hypothesized that members of the press have an agenda--derail Bush's plan. This is unacceptable. The lack of respect that they show the President in order that they might advance their own agenda's is beyond belief. They need to remember that they report news, not make it.

TODAY'S MORAL: REPORT IT don't MAKE IT!!! I am calling on the three people (ok maybe it's more, maybe it's less) who read this blog to push for more JOURNALISTIC and INVESTIGATIVE reporting by the press--whether it be a high school or college paper, or it is the (self proclaimed) Creme'-de la Creme of the press at the White House Press Corps. Members of the press must be held accountable. They must be pushed back into line. They must be reminded to "report news" rather than "make news."