Howie Stands Up
Cable news is driving me crazy.
What's been the biggest domestic issue of the last
month or so? Bush administration eavesdropping without court orders. And yesterday
was the first congressional oversight hearing on the controversy, with Alberto
Gonzales as the star witness.The cable nets all made a great show of “covering”
the Senate Judiciary hearing by carrying the AG's opening statement, then
maybe a question or two from Arlen Specter. Then they trotted out their legal
analysts to talk about the meaning of the hearing, which by then must have
been eight or nine minutes old. The hearing became video wallpaper as the
cable talkers talked. They never even got to Pat Leahy, the panel's top Democrat,
meaning that only Republican voices were heard. Gonzales essentially got a
free ride. … …
I've been really hard on Howie lately, especially as “Reliable
Sources” ditches its blogger panel after the Post's dust up over Deborah.
But today, Mr. Kurtz stands up in a big way against the cable news networks basically
being AWOL on the biggest privacy and presidential overreach issue since Nixon.
If we cannot get cable to cover the Judiciary hearings, President Bush and every
president after him, will have expanded power and precedence to back it up.
But is anyone listening to Howie?
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