Posted by Mary Chastain Feb 28th 2012 at 4:58 am in Defense and Foreign Policy, Democrats/progressives, Featured Story, GOP, Justice/Legal, Mainstream Media When I was in DC for CPAC I had the pleasure to meet and interview Representative Joe Walsh and Representative Paul Gosar. I did a phone interview with Representative Raul Labrador on February 16th. I wanted to ask them for their thoughts on the media ignoring Operation Fast & Furious and anything else pertaining to the operation.
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| Rest In Peace Brian Terry. We Won't Forget. |
I was eager to meet Rep. Walsh being that I’m also from the Chicago area and find it interesting that a tea party conservative Republican from the Chicago area was elected to Congress. Rep Walsh has been the most outspoken about the media ignoring anything about Fast and Furious. During our discussion he said for the media it isn’t about protecting Attorney General Eric Holder or Operation Fast & Furious; to them it’s all about protecting President Obama.
“The media is beyond in love with President Obama to the point it’s a fatal attraction,” he said. They worked so hard to get him elected they have to make sure there are no blemishes on his administration whether he is connected to the scandal or not. Walsh was not shocked when I told him the media has not been name-checking Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. He agreed with me that to name him would humanize the event and he added it would make the story more compelling. He was very happy to hear that the media is starting to mention Brian Terry by name, including an entire story dedicated to his life at CNN.
“All of this forces us to be more outspoken,” Rep Walsh told me. He encourages all of us to keep Fast & Furious in the news. Everything must be reported no matter how big or small. He pushed for me to scrutinize the media over everything because you know if this was a GOP administration the media would be all over it.
He also gave major props to Matthew Boyle at The Daily Caller, Katie Pavlich at Townhall, Cam Edwards of NRA News, and, of course, Sharyl Attkisson at CBS News.
I asked him what it will take for the entire media to take this seriously. “Real iron clad evidence,” he said. “Cover up behavior.”
Later that same day I interviewed Representative Paul Gosar from Arizona. He represents the 1st district of Arizona, which has been affected by Operation Fast and Furious. It doesn’t surprise me that he’s very passionate about this investigation and very willing to talk about everything. Simply put, he is disgusted by Mr. Holder’s attitude. He thinks Holder’s arrogance has capability to bring down the administration. He described the bias as severe mainly because we haven’t heard anything from the Hispanic caucus. One would think the Hispanic caucus would be infuriated that we helped arm already-dangerous drug cartels which led to the death of 300+ Mexicans. Why have they remained silent?
When I asked about the spin from reporters like Charlie Savage at The New York Times (who habitually make Holder the victim), Rep. Gosar’s press secretary told him about the incident she had with him. I wrote about that here.
Here’s another interesting fact: The DOJ has really only handed over around 1,000 pages. Rep Gosar showed me a few examples and it’s true: A lot of the documents/emails they send over are duplicates. There’s a huge difference between 6,000 and 1,000.
Representative Raul Labrador had similar thoughts to Rep Walsh & Rep Gosar. He described their actions perfectly: journalistic malpractice. This is exactly what they’re doing. Saving President Obama is more important than doing their job. They aren’t protecting Mr. Holder or the DOJ. They’re protecting President Obama. They can’t allow President Obama to have any stains on his presidency. But he said we need to keep talking about it. We need to keep writing and publishing every little tidbit we receive. American citizens, once completely in the dark about this program, are now infuriated by it.
Another example of media’s malpractice is the way they keep bringing up operations under President Bush. Rep. Labrador talked about how Wide Receiver and Fast & Furious are completely different. The guns in Wide Receiver had a tracking device in them and our government was working closely with the Mexican government. It also helped that they had people on the other side of the border to arrest the buyers — in essence, the program tracked every variable. Fast and Furious did not track the firearms nor did our government continue close work with that of Mexico’s. If you thought the program was bad under Bush you by default admit that it is exponentially worse — and infinitely deadlier — under Obama.
Another example of media malpractice is the way they in which went after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. “The media was relentless,” said Rep. Labrador. I couldn’t agree more.
I hope to interview more about Operation Fast & Furious. We will continue our coverage and call out the media for not reporting full details. We will not give up until up and Brian Terry receives justice and his family has closure.
Big Journalism
