Ask a Tough Question of a Senator...

As we all know, it is the objective news journalists who ask the tough questions. We know that because the journalists keep telling us that the whole point of the First Amendment and the special position given to the press is to allow them to ask the tough questions that others may not have the courage to put to powerful politicians and officeholders.

So when blogger Paul Mirengoff asked Senator Dick Durbin a searching question about the constitutionality of the president’s electronics surveillance operations the Senator responded with... a question about who Mirengoff represented. Oh really. Now that tells us a lot about the media business. Ask a politician a tough question and he asks: Who is your boss?

But here is the “dog that didn’t bark” moment, from Mark Tapscott, quoting an unnamed “veteran Senate GOP staffer:”

"The mainstream news media that covers Congress is tightly controlled by the House and Senate press galleries and they would never be so aggressive in pressing a Member of Congress. So this was big, it was unprecedented to have a blogger asking such questions. We need more bloggers up here asking questions because they aren’t controlled by the galleries."

Oh really. Do you mean to say, as veteran CBS 60 Minutes talent Mike Wallace used to say, that our tough questioning MSM reporters really aren’t? Never have been? Never will be?

So what’s the point? What’s the point of the First Amendment? What’s the point of these sacred “shield” laws to protect journalists from retribution?

We always wondered why the MSM is so gentle with the Democrats. Apparently it is not just that they are all liberals together. There is an unseen doggie leash restraining the reporters, the doggie leash held by their own colleagues in the press gallery, the ones that control the press credentials, the essential access to Congress.

If you want corroboration about the power of the press gallery and its credentialing of reporters to the US Congress, you could start with Joseph Farah’s fight to get WorldNetDaily.com accredited to report on our public servants on Capitol Hill.