If They Loved Private Enterprise So Much, Why Did They All Have Gov't Jobs?

[No Exit]

Good Riddance To The Gingrichites

CBS' Meyer: GOP 'Chess Club' Ruled The House For 12 Years And Won't Be Missed

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16, 2006

Former Rep. Newt Gingrich led the "Contract With America" crowd in 1994. (AP)

(CBS) This commentary was written by CBSNews.com's Dick Meyer.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


This is a story I should have written 12 years ago when the "Contract with America" Republicans captured the House in 1994. I apologize.

Really, it's just a simple thesis: The men who ran the Republican Party in the House of Representatives for the past 12 years were a group of weirdos. Together, they comprised one of the oddest legislative power cliques in our history. And for 12 years, the media didn't call a duck a duck, because that's not something we're supposed to do.

(snip)

The iconic figures of this era were Newt Gingrich, Richard Armey and Tom Delay. They were zealous advocates of free markets, low taxes and the pursuit of wealth; they were hawks and often bellicose; they were brutal critics of big government.

Yet none of these guys had success in capitalism. None made any real money before coming to Congress. None of them spent a day in uniform. And they all spent the bulk of their adult careers getting paychecks from the big government they claimed to despise. Two resigned in disgrace.

(snip)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/15/opinion/meyer/main2182755.shtml

Postscript: The K Street Project was a violation of RICO. As someone once posted here on DU, a civil RICO suit was successfully pursued against it some 5 years ago. What we need is to also have a CRIMINAL RICO action pursued against DeLay, etc.

[Harmonicaman]

1. Better late than never ?

this statement

"This is a story I should have written 12 years ago when the "Contract with America" Republicans captured the House in 1994. I apologize."


Journalists, like politicians are now so tainted to the majority of ordinary folk, that my glee at reading this story is tempered by the knowledge that it was written after the GOP powerbase has been removed.

Journalists with a very few decent exceptions gave the Republicans a free hand over the past 12 years, stood by and watched the hounding of Clinton by people arguably worse that anything Clinton did, even if you use the GOP attack dog rhetoric to describe what Clinton did and leave reality behind.

Stood by disgracefully silent while a war was waged on a pack of lies, holes in the official story illuminated from day one and ignored by practically all of the media.

Sttod by and watched that hateful childishness of Faux News carry on the pretence of journalism while indulging in a circle jerk with the GOP, becoming essentially the GOPS version of Pravda and call it "fair and balanced".

A well known pic on the www for years has proclaimed that Russians had Pravda and Republicans have Fox. Its well known what was going on, has been for years and yet the media as a whole stood by and did nothing. Not a word of dissent in a stunning display of shameful hypocrisy.

Hardly a word of dissen in the mainstream tabout torture, wiretapping, the constitution being emasculated...etc etc ad nauseum

No, it was left to the comedians to publicise wrongdoing - all the while being shouted down as "unamerican" "traitors" "terrorist appeasers" and the bloggers in places such as this fighting a ridiculously one sided fight, and attacked with the same idealogue rhetoric.

and now that the GOP is a toothless, clawless tiger there is suddenly regret that reports were not printed earlier.

12 years too late....

that is itself is a shameful admission from someone who no doubt lists his profession as "journalist".

Its reach the point now were as long as a voice speaks the truth its never too little, but it is certainly too late, and arguably cowardly.

Can journalists, real honest to goodness journalists restore their reputation over the next few years - the jury is out

[Atman]

2. Welcome to DU, harmonicaman!

Great post! Thanks for sharing.

:hi:

.

[Harmonicaman]

5. Hi

I've been lurking and reading for quite a while, its refreshing to read the opinions of folk not tainted and brainwashed into believing the boogeyman in the closet, the gays all want to rape your kids and if you don't bend over for Bush you are a scheming terrorist stories that perpetrate and perpetuate in the US nowadays. and one of the captains of that particular ship being an expat australian who bribes his way to positions of influence with the powers that be, by controlling vast chunks of the information machine and using it to his own advantage by pandering to the whim of the lowest common denominator.

I'm British,
but work takes me to the US on a very regular basis, regular enough for us, as a family, to have bought a house so that I'm not "away from home" as it were for too long at a time.

I despair sometimes at the seemingly wilful ignorance on display in the United States at the moment in regards to an informed public, don't get me wrong the Brits aren't too far behind in being a race of consumer diet fed sheep and simple tw*ts - the one difference is that the British media have had a section that havent lay down and have asked difficult questions from the getgo, and that section is growing.

thank whatever you believe in that the US now seems to be opening its eyes, and its media following suit.

and yes, thank god for the likes of Keith Olbermann

[newyawker99]

6. Hi Harmonicaman!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[No Exit]

3. I won't demonize journalists as long as there is Keith Olbermann

However, I will concede that MOST journalists are mostly sycophants.

But I'm not going to go on and on and on about "the media" because at the moment we have a "people's media"--forums like this. Not every human is a sycophant--and every human can have a voice on the internet (for now).

Railing against "the media" is just too republican-ish for me. We now have a chance to BE "the media". Many brave souls are taking that chance. They are called "bloggers".

[Doctor_J]

4. we have a chance to be the media?

Yipes. I don't see us having much of a chance when every time Americans turn on the TV or radio or open a newspaper, GOP propaganda washes over them.

[gratuitous]

7. "I should have written 12 years ago"

Apology accepted, Mr. Meyer. Now, what are you going to do to atone for your mistake? It's not enough sometimes to just say "I'm sorry." Reparations have to be made. Under the last 12 years of Republican misrule, we've have millions more people slide into poverty; millions more people risking destitution should they fall ill or be injured; millions more people not enjoying the fruits of their labor (productivity continues to grow; wages continue to stagnate).

A lot of the wealth produced by our country has been just flat stolen from the people who created it, and the thieves were aided and abetted by the "Contract with America" crowd that you have now soured on. What will the Columbia Broadcasting System do to rectify that? Please be as specific as possible. Will you continue with the "he said, but he said" format of pseudo-balance, even when you know that what one side is saying is total bullshit? Will you report facts that show mealy-mouthed politicians to be liars? Will you preface and end your report on the lies by calling them lies? Or will you continue to shrug and say, "Well, both sides have different opinions." Everyone's entitled to an opinion; they're not entitled to their own facts.

What are you going to DO, Mr. Meyer? Or is this it, and it's back to business as usual after Thanksgiving?