Wash Post reporter will reveal extensive use of minders at inaugural balls

[Newsjock]

Coming from the Washington Post; no link yet

By Paul Farhi
(c) 2005, The Washington Post

... But now the art of press handling has evolved into actual manhandling. The Bush administration has expanded the use of “minders,” government employees or volunteers who escort journalists from interview to interview within a venue or at a newsworthy event.

... Several reporters covering the balls were surprised to find themselves being monitored Soviet-style by young “escorts” who followed them from hors d’oeuvres table to dance floor and even to the bathroom.

... As I was dictating from my notes, something flashed across my face and neatly snatched my cell phone from of my hand. I looked up to confront a middle-aged woman, her faced afire with rage. “You ignored the rules, and I’m throwing you out!” she barked, snapping my phone shut. “You told that girl you didn’t need an escort. That’s a lie! You’re out of here!”

... No, the minders weren’t there to monitor me. They were there to let the guests, my sources on inaugural night, know that any complaint, any unguarded statement, any off-the-reservation political
observation, would be noted.

[Hissyspit]

1. Fascist tactics

...the administration, that is.

[AlCzervik]

2. Well it's official-We are now a banana republic with a tin pot dictator.

[electropop]

3. Please put this on Page One!

Maybe it will help people see what kind of monsters we are dealing with now.

[Pirate Smile]

4. BushCo's information control just get scarier and scarier.

The press is practically the only check we have against this regime and they are doing their best to hog tie them.

[Bluebear]

Fascist suppression of a dwindling free press

I was chatting with an Argentine woman yesterday who lived under Peron. She was fuming, "Bush is a dictator this is just like how Peron wacted"

[Career Prole]

5. The "paid press"story is gaining momentum.

Keep 'em rolling, folks! Nixon lasted 20 months into his 2nd term.
We can't afford to let the chimp stay in power that long.

[mtnester]

6. "Thought-police" cannot be far behind

no, not far at all

[rambler_american]

82. The "thought police" won't stop me.

They can't control my....
I'll be right back. There's someone at the door.

[KoKo]

7. Sorry....but I have no sympathy for "The Press." Maybe now they will

understand what we've been trying to tell them about this Dictatorship and they will have some sympathy for American Citizens who are cordoned off into "Free Speech Zones" behind metal barracades and denied their own rights to protest their government.

No sympathy...they allowed this to happen. It's on the shoulders of the NYT's, WA PO and their owners that this is happening. Now it comes to them...

[Taverner]

8. Do you have no sympathy for Reporters or Editors?

The reporters have been trying to get the stories in all along, but fired when they *make waves*.

The editors, I will agree, are in bed with this administration.

[burythehatchet]

58. ANY reporter that was attending a ball

probably is not one any of us read

[burythehatchet]

57. Agreed

They deserve all that they get. Being a journalist carries with it a high standard of ethics and honesty. Guys like Sy Hersh are the examples. The rest can go to hell and suck Limbaugh's pecker...Hi Daryn Kagan!!

[leftchick]

63. It is not about them , it is about US....

~snip~

I know: It's hard to work up a lot of sympathy for reporters trying to cover a party. I don't feel particularly sorry for me, either. But this isn't really about me. It's about . . . you.

Consider that the escorts weren't there to provide security; all of us had already been through two checkpoints and one metal detector. They weren't there to keep me away from, Heaven forbid, a Democrat or a protester; those folks were kept safely behind rings of fences and concrete barriers. Nor were the escorts there to admonish me for asking a rude question of the partying faithful, or to protect the paying customers from the prying media.

Their real purpose only occurred to me after I had gone home for the night, when I remembered a brief conversation with a woman I was interviewing. During the middle of our otherwise innocuous encounter, she suddenly noticed the presence of my minder. She stopped for a moment, glanced past me, then resumed talking.

No, the minders weren't there to monitor me. They were there to let the guests, my sources on inaugural night, know that any complaint, any unguarded statement, any off-the-reservation political observation, might be noted. But maybe someday they'll be monitoring something more important than an inaugural ball, and the source could be you.

[rman]

69. can't you have sympathy for certain reporters?

such as Greg Palast, Seymour Hersh, and a whole bunch of others?
Or do you think press people are all the same?

[peacetalksforall]

80. Yes, they have allowed themselves to be morphed into commie style

propagandists for the sake of their ceo bosses partnership with the right wing. Or, your might say, in this capitalist-commie propagandized U.S., for the sake of their mortgages. Yes, they allowed this to happen and they ain't going to be quite so smug. We berate them from one side and point out their lies and Bush insults them in the press conferences and some can't tell their moms and pops that they 'did good' with their education.

[deutsey]

9. The terrorists hate us for our freedoms, so if we get rid of our freedoms

the terrorists will stop hating us.

See?

[Been Fishing]

23. Oh! Yeah! Right!

Now, why didn't I think of that?

[indepat]

30. Brilliant deduction. But is it possible other reasons might be a factor?

[Wrinkle_In_Time]

34. Excellent use of irony, deutsey...

...you do your avatar proud.

[Clark2008]

40. Good one!!

:thumbsup:

:)

[FlemingsGhost]

48. That's called "National Sucker-ity." (n/t)

Flem.

[tom_paine]

10. Well, Imperial Amerika IS a Totalitarian State

I used to ask myself, if Totalitarianism came to America (this was in the Days of the Old Republic) where would they find the people to do all that Soviet/Nazi/Ferd Marcos stuff?

Little did I realize this country is literally TEEMING with people who's id has been replaced with Heiling Fuhrer, or Noble and Godly Emperor or whatever it is this time around, I forget.

TEEMING.

I think they have always been with us but the genius of the Constitution and the American-ness of our ancestors prevented them from taking over.

Well, taking over is the wrong way to describe it. A better way would be to say preventing some leader with a brilliant propaganda strategy from herding them all together, programming into a singular unchagable thought pattern, then unleashing them to help the leadership destroy America (and themselves, really) so the leader can possess the ahses.

This Soviet behavior is entirely predictable and asppropriate for a place like Imperial Amerika.

Of course, it wouldn't fly in the Free World, but those places are far away and they can do nothing to save us.

[gratuitous]

11. Hmm, almost literally smacked them in the face

I wonder is this will cause a couple of eyes to blink rapidly in a news room or two across the country and have someone say, "Heyyyyy."

Probably not. Instead, they'll turn on Farhi like chickens in the coop and peck him to death (or at least out of the profession) for telling a dirty little secret.

[global1]

12. There's Power In Numbers - If More of the Press Start to Revolt & Tell ...

the truth - they won't be able to stop them. We need to start a MSM Press strike.

[Bozita]

13. Sounds like Bush has learned a thing or two from his pal Putin

He can see Putin's soul, ya know.

[htuttle]

15. They used to call them Zampolit in the Soviet Union

Same job description.

[MsMagnificent]

37. Just as Sharon is "a man of peace"!

...nevermind Sharon's autobiography is entitled Warrior
But then Our richly-clothed Emporer don't hold wid much book-larnin', do he?!

Yeesh!

[kohodog]

64. Bush also is a self proclaimed "peace president"

Fool me once....nevermind.

[On the Road]

14. The Communist Chinese Used to do This

back before they liberalized the society. It's really gotten shameless. I can't believe the newspapers keep silent about it.

[LiberallyInclined]

17. The "news"papers, like the rest of the MSM...

are owned by and beholden to corporations.(beholden by ad revenue)

[The Backlash Cometh]

16. I'm not going to believe this until I see a link.

[intheflow]

36. Agreed.

It's just heresay until the link is posted. The poster didn't even acknowledge when they got the info from.

It'll be intersting--and under-reported in other MSM--if the WP does actualy publish it.

[NYC]

51. Here's the link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3023851

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46409-2005Jan29.html

[grasswire]

18. is there more forthcoming?

I certainly hope so. This is juicy stuff.

[distantearlywarning]

19. Can somebody PLEASE post a link to this story!!!!

Some of us would like to read the whole thing and email it to our friends. Thank you!

[blm]

20. BushInc is a sick pack of CONTROL FREAKS. This IS how Hitler operated

and Saddam Hussein, and the Saudis, and every known dictator.

They are TOTALITARIAN FASCISTS.

[emulatorloo]

21. Post the link here when you get it N/t

[Selatius]

22. I'm getting pretty disaffected

I'm running down to the point where I'm constantly thinking, "Hey, America collectively did this to itself. Let them have their corporatism and their nationalism and their religious fanaticism and their Fuehrer. Their collective stupidity doomed them." Millions voted for this. Let them have it.

Isn't this how it went?

Ein Volk. Ein Reich. Ein Fuehrer?

The only problem is I live in this country, and I ought to get out if this country is going off the deep end. The government is beyond salvageable at this point, imho. It's so full of corruption, and I believe it when someone like JFK, Jr., says that the Democrats are 75% corrupt, and the Republicans are 90% corrupt. This country is dying under the weight of its own lies and hypocrisy. It's about to hit its death bed.

[MsMagnificent]

38. Easy solution for that problem

...the problem of Ein Volk and we degenerate Democrats mucking up all their Superior Morals!

A Final Solution!

The friendly folks at LGF & other sites of that ilk think, and have been thinking for years that all us treasonous Democrats should be thrown into Concentration Camps

...or killed

soon to become AND killed.


Yep. Superior morals!

[Clark2008]

41. Take me with you, please.

I'm pretty helpless, actually. I'm smart, but have way too much invested and am seriously thinking about building hideouts in my attic! The kind with canned food and false walls.

:tinfoilhat:

But, I seriously am. I've been dreaming about it.

[ashmanonar]

74. get a ham radio before you hide out.

so you can get the word out when bushco DOES take over. there might not be any international outcry.

[Synnical]

24. Earlier brief mention by Howie Kurtz

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31306-2005Jan23.html

Monday, January 24, 2005; Page C01

3/4 down the page . . .

After the 'Freedom' Speech

Reporters at some of the inaugural balls are steamed that they could not interview the partygoers without an official minder trailing them, lest they get insufficiently fulsome praise from President Bush's supporters. Washington Post reporter Peter Carlson, who was escorted to and from the men's room, likens the restrictions to "Saddam-era Iraq."

"It's hard to get people to be frank with you," says Chicago Tribune reporter Jeff Zeleny, who gave up at one ball. "It seems like a baby-sitting exercise. It's just one more example of how the Bush administration likes to control the story."

[yardwork]

31. What were the minders afraid people would say at the balls?

That's pretty paranoid of bushco (they are paranoid, though). Wouldn't the guests at the inaugural balls be least likely to say anything negative about the bush regime?

If true, this story leads me to believe that there are a lot of things that are known about bush's health and behavior that the WH doesn't want somebody to gossip about. Open secrets.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

35. Condi might again slip up-"as I was telling my husb---President Bush**..."

Remember that one? No more loose lips while Rove is hanging on white-knuckled to get through the 'unplanned' Iraqi election 'events.'

Any one remember the presstitutes being escorted into the briefing room in pairs like a seance or funeral for the Chimperor's announcement of the beginning of the war?

That was scary. I'm sure those not bought off are just terrified...

[AuntiBush]

39. Paranoid...

You got that right! Think... has anyone here ever seen so much protection at the inauguration before? When he visited England awhile back, I remember reading in the on line BBC how stunned people were over the massive amount of protection while our guys have no body armor...

Now, a news feed just came in that he's getting new helicopters built like no other for himself mind you, not our troops after several accidents in Iraq... nice Commander and Thief! And can you guess who got the contract...

Go here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/29/business/29copter.html?ex=1107925200&en=b972b8d755ee84f9&ei=5070

Is there a stronger word to describe this... and "minders!?!" WTF!?! Leaks. That's all we can rely on are "leaks" and "secret sources." It's like a movie in the making, literal yet sad stuff for our once wonderful country.

[SmokingJacket]

65. I think you got it.

Not criticism... as if! But slip ups.

Good thinking.

[big peaches]

25. More frightening than this Administration ...

.... are this Administration's minions who mindlessly march in lockstep behind Fearless Leader's every command, utterance and breath. I was (and still am) a big fan of Bill Clinton's, but I did not agree with **everything** he did (DOMA, hello).

There seem to be so many people in this country now who CANNOT THINK FOR THEMSELVES. Extremely frightening.

[ClintonTyree]

29. Or when they do attempt................

to think for themselves, their perception of reality has become so warped from listening to these cretins that their ideas are a total failure right from the start.
And welcome to DU, big peaches.:hi:

[catzies]

43. Welcome to DU, big peaches!

I think you'll like it here! :hi:

[spooked911]

85. Yep and welcome to DU, Big Peaches!

nice name too!

[progressoid]

26. Gee, I wonder why the RW gets all pissed when this administration is

compared to fascists or nazis? Seems like the normal way to run a democracy.

[PATRICK]

27. Don't like being compared to

losers.

[Gold Metal Flake]

28. So naturally, if they have gone this far, you KNOW...

..That other rewards, such as sex and drugs, are involved.

Someone needs to start an investigation of who is being serviced by the Washington DC escort trade.

[distantearlywarning]

32. Voice of the White House has interesting things to say about this.

"In my second-to-last communication I talked about a male ”escort service” operating in DC for the edification of the very senior Beltway people. I have, locked up in my office safe, copies of the credit card receipts with names, card numbers and signatures of: two Supreme Court and one Appellate Court judges {Have you heard about the two judges who tried each other?} eight Senators, five Congressmen, two former and one current White House aides, a number of very prominent DC lawyers, several senior members of the RNC, four general officers and one Admiral, three of whom are still on active duty , five local newspapermen, eight ministers, high level employees of: State Department, Commerce Department, Justice Department, HEW Department, DC police department, NSA, DIA, and most especially, a number of pundits from Georgetown University and a nice collection of CIA people. The proprietor of this stud farm was one Todd Blodgett and there was a front-page story on one of his male whore establishments in the Washington Times. Blodgett was a Reagan White House aide, was fired from both the WH and later, the RNC, for aggressive homosexual behavior and then tossed out of the University Club in DC."

http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a1151.htm

[Clark2008]

42. Ohhhh... I love your pictures of the truth tellers and spines there!

NICE!

Sorry, I see Clark, Boxer, Conyers, Edmunds... ohhhh... I got off topic. :)

P.S. That picture of Clark was taken in my hometown and was on the front page of the local paper. ;)

[Gold Metal Flake]

45. Thanks.

The pix remind me to not just park on the couch and pretend it ain't happening.

[ultraist]

33. And you KNOW there is a lot more going on than we hear about...

>Paid journalists
>Coercing government workers to propagandize about Social Security
>Homosexual "detectors"
>Minders
>Corporate MSM (Bush propaganda vehicle)
>Sanitized info about the war (no coffin photos, filtered info, etc)

What's going on that hasn't been exposed yet?

We can be certain that this stuff is just the little info that gets found out. I bet it's pretty frightening behind the curtain.

[Kota]

61. Yes, its not whats being filtered for us to see but what is being

filtered out that we don't see.

[Mynameissalvatore]

83. Don't forget

"outing" of CIA agents

[Newsjock]

44. Not in Saturday's Post; watch for Sunday

This piece didn't run in the print edition of Saturday's Post. I suspect that it will run in the Sunday paper (more readers!), in the Outlook section. When it shows up online, it will probably show up here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/print/sunday/outlook/

[LibDemAlways]

46. Every read The Giver by Lois Lowry?

My daughter is reading it in 6th grade lit. It's set in a colorless, tightly controlled society where every action is governed by rules and breaking the rules means being "released."

Someone at the RNC has a copy of it.

[RBHam]

47. Congrats, it's now official...

You live in a de facto Police State...

Sundown on America...

[Babel_17]

49. Another link to keep an eye on?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/Search?keywords=Paul%20Farhi

I figured it was worth a shot.

Off Topic: This fellow writes very well, check out his "More Cowbell" article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46074-2005Jan28.html

[Newsjock]

50. LINK HERE (finally)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46409-2005Jan29.html

Don't Mind Me. I'm Just Doing My Job

By Paul Farhi
Sunday, January 30, 2005; Page B02

Reporters who cover the White House are accustomed to being spun by administration officials. The modern presidential toolbox includes carefully rationed press conferences, say-nothing spokesmen, dead-of-night releases of unfavorable news, and phony "town hall" meetings composed solely of sycophantic supporters. More recently, government agencies have issued fake-news videos and secretly contracted with two pundits to promote the administration's policies on education and marriage.


But now the art of press handling has evolved into actual manhandling. The Bush team has expanded the use of "minders," employees or volunteers who escort journalists from interview to interview within a venue or at a newsworthy event.

more

[NMDemDist2]

54. kicked and nominated n/t

[deacon]

52. Wow, just unbelievable n/t

[FatDave]

53. It just keeps getting scarier and scarier

While I realize it's trite and cliche to compare the Bush administration (anyone, really) to the Nazi's, I can't really help myself anymore. The big question everyone asks when they first learn about the holocaust is usually "How could the German people let that happen? How could they not see?"

Now of course I remain hopeful that things will not reach that pitch in our country, that our democratic process will eventually issue a course correction (assuming it doesn't get completely subverted). Yet every day it becomes more and more obvious that power is being consolidated, liberty is being compromised, and the press is being controlled or stifled.

And yet so few realize it's even happening.


On a lighter note, I have to wonder if "several reporters covering the balls" was the best choice of words.

[Al-CIAda]

55. So, it took 10 days for this to leak out-

This also means that the other reporters tthere had no intention of revealing this. Apparently they were ok with this. Apparently they are so far gone that we aren't hearing but a fracttion of how the 'free press' isn't free at all.

[wellstone dem]

59. It took 10 days to leak out

and then it was a Style reporter who had the guts to write it.

[Rose Siding]

68. Access and careers are at stake, but so is democracy

The story sure needs a good reporter, though. The allusion to Clinton doing something similar is unsourced and undefined.

[spooked911]

84. exactly-- isn't it pathetic?

[Q]

56. The real purpose of the 'escorts':

"Their real purpose only occurred to me after I had gone home for the night, when I remembered a brief conversation with a woman I was interviewing. During the middle of our otherwise innocuous encounter, she suddenly noticed the presence of my minder. She stopped for a moment, glanced past me, then resumed talking.

No, the minders weren't there to monitor me. They were there to let the guests, my sources on inaugural night, know that any complaint, any unguarded statement, any off-the-reservation political observation, might be noted. But maybe someday they'll be monitoring something more important than an inaugural ball, and the source could be you.

So I have a suggestion: If I must have an escort, let me choose my own. My wife would be delighted to help her country."


Author's e-mail: [e-mail]


Paul Farhi is a reporter for The Post's Style section.

[spanone]

60. When can I read this in the Wapo?????

They don't normally advertise their upcoming news....What is the delay?

[hatrack]

66. Why, Rove-directed sanitation is the reason for the delay, of course

The stenographers can suck my left nut. They've rolled over and waited for Bush and his handlers to rub their tummies ever since those long-ago halcyon days of 1999, and now they're shocked, shocked to find themselves on a leash so tight that it's cutting off their oxygen.

America's "journalists" and "editors" and "free press" have no one to blame but themselves, and no one to hurt but all of us. They can go and pound sand.

[No Exit]

62. "Oh, it's only a paper moon, Sailing over a cardboard sea,

But it wouldn't be make-believe, If you believed in me!

It's a Barnum & Bailey World, Just as phony as it can be, But it wouldn't be make-believe, If you believed in me!"

Above is the theme song of the Bush administration. (Cue Twilight Zone music...) Rod Serling's voice: A deadly carnival played in a penny arcade... where human beings and human dignity are the targets in the shooting gallery...

[ashmanonar]

75. holy shit.

that's creepy. i was able to imagine Rod Serling doing that!

wow.

[tblue37]

67. Do you have a link? I couldn't find the article with a google search. n/t

[spanone]

70. I'm beginning to doubt this story. It is already 'old' news.

[tblue37]

73. Actually, there is a link in another thread now.

[Geek_Girl]

71. I’m back in the USSR.

You don’t know how lucky you lucky you are boy
Back in the USSR.

[southernleftylady]

72. LINK

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46409-2005Jan29.html

[librechik]

76. thanks southernleftylady!

you're a peach!

:loveya:

[Generator]

77. Someone asked why

When obviously those at the balls would be pretty darn near 100% pro-chimp.

Well, if there is an IOTA of free thought, of criticism, the emperor does not allow that.

Also, George W. Bush can't handle the truth. Not an ounce of it. He lives in a make believe world. He actually thinks he's rightly elected, for starters, and that all those that voted for him (never mind how) want his war and all future wars. He has a mandate. He has the majority. He believes he is just. He is insane.

[Colorado Blue]

78. I'm just waiting for dissenters to be arrested, along with

artists, disabled people, people of inferior races, so forth.

[intheflow]

79. Ooh, those style reporters are shady characters!

No wonder the WH kept a close on this guy. His work is published on the Internet, for goodness sake! That makes him one of those crazy blogging conspiracy theorists, obviously.

/sarcasm

[Pirate Smile]

81. Article will be in Sunday's WP

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1195221

[EVDebs]

86. I do hope your interrupted bowel movement met their satisfaction.