If I see it called "Plamegate" one more time...

(Watergate was the name of the hotel. Stop adding "gate" as a suffix for scandals - it just sounds stupid.)

Now, I'll be the first to admit that we probably don't know all the information about the Valerie Plame identity leak scandal. And I readily acknowledge that this is a sticky case in terms of whether or not journalists should be allowed to protect their sources; this isn't some whistleblower who's job and safety could be threatened, it's someone who potentially commited a federal crime. I don't think anyone (outside of those directly involved) really knows enough of the details to say what the motivations of any of these players are.

But this is where the media comes in and is finally, finally doing their job and asking questions. The now ubiquitous video and story of the White House press briefing yesterday in which Scott McClellan had his ass handed to him was completely glorious. Where was these people over the past 4 and half years?! And this opinion isn't just motivated by my dislike of the Bush administration, it's really more founded in my disappointment over these past few years of the mainstream media's failure to ask the tough questions and look for the truth. As an aspiring journalist, it's been frankly depressing to see the state that the media is in. It is both the right and the duty of every American to question our government, and the media is the means through which we do that:

MCCLELLAN: You can keep jumping in, but I’m going to try to keep going to other people in this room as well. And we can have a constructive dialogue here I think, but that’s not the way to do it.
QUESTION: It’s not my job to have a constructive dialogue, Scott. Sorry.

This is precisely the attitude that has been missing from the White House press, it's nice to see it return. As Jon Stewart just commented: "We've secretly replaced the White House Press Corps with actual reporters."



Related to this issue, I read a chat exchange with Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank (which was frankly quite funny), who answered reader's questions (linked to below). This was one of my favorites:

"Hampton Cove, Ala.: "Hapless"? [Milbank referred to Scott McClellan as this in a previous question.] How do you think the public feels about reporters? You are a partisan bunch. I compare yesterday's White House press briefing and the furor over a Fox reporter who asked a soft question last month. The MSM is an arm of the DNC. The true low was Terry Moran convicting Karl Rove, yet I seem to remember his sympathetic "due process" comments for Al Qaeda terrorists as Gitmo. Do you wonder why Americans have so little respect for the media?

Dana Milbank: Actually, the best part of yesterday's briefing may have been when Fox's Carl Cameron asked Scott if the president still has faith in Rove, and Scott wouldn't say.

So by your intriguing chain of connections, Fox News is an arm of the DNC?

Americans have so little respect for the media because partisans on both the right and the left have devoted themselves to organized attacks on the press's credibility in recent years. It's the political equivalent of heckling the referee in a sporting competition in hopes of getting better calls."

Firstly, very apt analogy. Secondly, Heh.

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