Jack,
Wait a second there, putzboy. You’re blaming me for the pathetic quality of your latest rant? I gave you great material to work with. Not my fault you’re running out of steam.
And another thing: I know John Harris. I like John Harris. And you’re no John Harris.
Here is further evidence of a defect afflicting you self-appointed press critics (don’t you love when reporters, of all people, jump someone because he’s “self-appointed”? This occurs most often in stories about William Bennett, as in “William Bennett, the self-appointed morals czar …” As if the reporters who employ this slur have been sent to Washington by the voters of Orange County, or of the great state of Maine).
Oh, I was saying: You self-appointed press critics, in your desperation to find snark-worthy items on which to grind your axes, never place your criticism in any kind of context, and you seldom consider the overall reliability of the reporter who is quoting anonymous sources. I’m not much for anonymous sourcing, but I have the luxury of being a magazine reporter. In the White House pressroom, the use of anonymous sources is unavoidable. And in the hands of good reporters, such as John Harris (I love you, John!) they’re a great help to the reader.
John, if you’re reading this, could you please get me a job at the Post. Please.
A long time ago I promised myself I would no longer be goaded by Jack Shafer, but I’m going to make an exception here. (Are you in a bad mood today? Do you feel unworthy, like an impostor, because you’re occupying Lynne Cheney’s old desk?)
You state, as fact, that I’m still smarting because the Washington Post passed me over. This is not true. Not the passing over part, but the smarting part.
In 1989, I was, in fact, passed over for a permanent position on the city desk of the Washington Post. I was, at the time, filling a “temporary” slot as a police reporter (at that point, I was known as the longest-serving intern in Post history). When I asked to be considered for the permanent slot, I was taken into a glass-enclosed room by the then-city editor, who told me that the slot was reserved for a Hispanic to be named later. The Hispanic was soon named, and I was gone.
But things worked out, and you’re not going to hear any Shaferistic whining from me.
One more thing before I sign off–I was just reading an Associated Press account of the life of Robert Pickett, the gunman who gave the all-news cable channels reason to exist today. This account was, of course, pulled together in 23 minutes, and consisted of interviews with his neighbors. Pickett, a former neighbor named Beverly Buck said, “has always been a very kind and a very good person as far as I’m concerned.”
I was hoping you could do me a favor: If for some reason, I become the subject of sudden and intense media scrutiny, could you loiter in front of my house and pose as my neighbor when the reporters arrive. I was thinking you could say something like this: “Jeff hasn’t been the same since he returned from Calcutta, where he spent years assisting Mother Teresa in her service to the downtrodden. I’m not saying, God forbid, that Jeff was ever self-centered, but now, he seems to care about only the poor and the sick. Why, just the other day, he donated his remaining kidney to an ailing Hispanic reporter at the Washington Post.”
