The Media Cover-up (For Now)

If the media is one thing---it is transparent. It is also leftist and predictable, but that would be three things.

So, here we go with a prediction born of the leftist transparency we find with the Activist Old Media. 

Sometime after November 7th the media will begin doing its job. Now...it still won't fully do it's job, but it will at least give it the ol' College Journalism School Try. 

Two scandals should be rocking this White House right now. By themselves, each is worse than Watergate, and combined they would make Barack Obama the most scandalous president in history. Fast and Furious, the Benghazi terrorist attack; and lies and cover-ups with both.

There is an election to win right now for the media and its Dear Leader, so neither scandal will get the attention it deserves. We know that, we see that. Oh...they may touch on these stories and bite around the edges, but the junk yard dogs sit muzzled and chained while the Obama administration has its way with the merchandise (in this case, we would be the merchandise.) Never forget this is the same media that spent four years, four years attacking the George W. Bush White House over the supposed leaking of a non-covert CIA agent's name. A story the media got horribly wrong, but oh well, the Bushies had it comin'.

Whether Obama wins or loses this election, the media will suddenly learn of these two stories through osmosis (or they will click into Big Government and read them) and they will cover them as if they knew them all along. They will try to maintain a smidgen of credibility. Investigative reporters will be unleashed, books will be written, and Peabody's and Emmy's will be awarded en-mass.

If Obama loses November 6th, the media will have ignored its motto of "speaking truth to power" because Obama will be out of power. It does little good then. The time to do these stories is now. Right now. But clearly the media feel loose seats on an American Airlines jet where nobody was hurt is more important. Gotta protect our viewers from bumping their heads---but 4 dead in Benghazi and 300+ killed in Fast and Furious will have to wait (oh, plus the lies and cover-ups, remember with Watergate it was the lies and cover-ups that were worse.) There was no desire by the media to tell the voting public who Obama was in 2008, why would they suddenly do it in 2012? They will not, they have not. 

If Obama wins November 6th (heaven help us---no really, heaven help us) the media will do what it has done to the second-terms of the most recent presidents in memory. The media will exert its power and make surethat president knows that they are in charge.  Never forget, as much as they love Obama, they love themselves and their power more. 

Second-term scandals, real or perceived are the reality. Nixon-Watergate, Reagan-Iran Contra, Clinton-Monica, Bush-Just being alive. Historians have argued that presidents get cocky in their second terms and that leads to their demise, and part of that is true, but the Obama scandals have been uncovered in his firstterm. I shutter to think what scandals might become us if he gets four more years. I haven't even mentioned the scandals of where the "stimulus" dollars were spent.

The Activist Old Media will do these stories and they will want credit for doing them. They will tell themselves how tough they were on Obama and they will point to the awards on their shelves as proof. Of course, we know the truth. When these stories needed to be done the junk yard dogs sat silent, by choice. 

There are still a few weeks left to do these stories when they matter most, but the media will not do them. They would've by now. The facts are out there now and it will matter little when they report them later.   

They have muzzled and chained themselves. 

Follow Ron Futrell on Twitter @RonFutrell

"Who Authorized Fast and Furious?"

I like to get to the heart of the matter, so I will use this column to ask one question of  President Barack Obama, "Who authorized Fast and Furious?"

Since no answer will be given, I will rhetorically ask a couple legitimate follow-ups, "Why do you not have that answer by now?" "How do you not know?" "You're the President of the United States of America, shouldn't you know this by now?"

Follow-ups are always the best indication of when a journalist is serious, or when they are pandering. This president gets very few serious follow-up questions.

I've been to plenty of media scrums and press conferences where questions had to be shouted and I would have no problem shouting that question to the president at the end of every public appearance. "Who authorized Fast and Furious?" Ronald Reagan got questions shouted at him many times during public appearances, if Obama won't answer this question, I would make it obvious that the president is avoiding me.

Obama was asked this question by Univision's Jorge Ramos on March 22, 2011. "I did not authorize it, Eric Holder the Attorney General did not authorize. He has been very clear that our policy is to put gunrunners in jail, so what he's done is to assign an IG, an Inspector General to investigate exactly what happened here," said Obama. Ramos interrupts Dear Leader at that point and asks, "Who authorized it?" Obama's answer, "Well, we don't have all the facts, that's why the IG is in business....this is a pretty big goverment, the United State government, I've got a lot of moving parts."

Ya, I guess the government is too big to know who inside it would concoct a program to sell 2000 of the most dangerous hand-held weapons on the planet to known Mexican drug dealers, kidnappers and murderers.

It's been 15 months since Obama was first asked, "Who authorized Fast and Furious?" and we are still no closer to an answer today than we were then. In fact, thanks to Obama using executive privilege to keep vital documents secret, we are farther from an answer today.

As journalists we should unite on this. No other question should be asked of the president until he answers this one. No fluff interviews about Bo the dog or Michelle's diet requests. Brian Terry was killed more than 18 months ago and his family deserves to know the answer to this question, "Who authorized Fast and Furious?"

If the media won't demand answers from this president, who will?

Fast and Furious, Worse Than Watergate

If you want to see a liberal media members head explode, compare Fast and Furious to Watergate. If you want to see an entire newsroom freak-out say that Fast and Furious is worse than Watergate.

The Activist Old Media has spent this month celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Watergate. Make no doubt about it, they are celebrating. They worship at the alter of Woodward and Bernstein for two reasons. 1) They took down a Republican President, 2) The media broke the story. Nothing can replace this perfect storm in their minds. Those are also the reasons the media will not give Fast and Furious the respect it deserves.

With a Democrat in the White House and his reelection on the line, this is the absolute worst time for a scandal like this to blow-up. The story of Eric Holder and the contempt vote must go after a hot day in June, as it was treated by ABC World News Tonight. They are being dragged kicking and screaming to this story and will drop it as quickly as they can. Compare the coverage of Fast and Furious to the four years of coverage of the Valerie Plame leaking "scandal" from the Bush White House days that ended in flameout for the Democrats and their media friends. 

Also, since bloggers broke this story, the Activist Old Media cannot take ownership and create shrines to fellow "journalists." CBS says that Sharon Atkisson broke the story, but it was on the 'net before it went to the Net. Certainly, Atkisson has done a great job on this story, so good that she has been yelled at by Holders lackeys. She was the first network news reporter to do the story partly because the other networks have been historically absent on this story, until now. But, no network "broke" this story, as they claim. It's a brave new world out there on the internet, and the Activist Old Media is doing everything it can to ignore and diminish that fact. Blind by choice.

There are many elements that make Fast and Furious #WorseThanWatergate. Brian Terry's death and the deaths of 300+ Mexicans should be first on that list. Nobody died in Watergate. It was a botched burglary of Democrat campaign headquarters by Republican operatives. Then came the Richard Nixon cover-up. We have always been told the cover-up was worse (which it was) and it brought down a President. In Fast and Furious, both the operation and the attempted cover-up are scandalous.  Holder has already lied many times to Congress and now Barack Obama has become the first President to use Executive Privilege to keep secret his own documents that he claims he has never seen. The media can't see the historic relevance here because they don't want to see it. Blind by choice.

Concocting a scheme to put the most dangerous hand-held weapons on the planet in the hands of Mexican drug cartels should be enough to bury anybody and everybody responsible. Congress wants to see how far this scandal goes up the food chain and they have been blocked at nearly every turn. Oh, Holder has turned over some documents, but it is clear there is more out there that this administration is hiding, or why the Executive Privilege? I guess that part is hard for the Activist Old Media to figure out. They are busy popping the champagne corks on 40 year old Dom.