Thursday, January 16, 2014

Why Jay Carney Should Resign

Is Jay Carney to be a respected journalist anymore? I provide you a brief resume' of his achievements from Wikipedia. 

From Wikipedia:


"After being hired as a reporter for The Miami Herald in 1987, Carney joined Time magazine as its Miami Bureau Chief in 1989. Carney worked as a correspondent in Time'sMoscow Bureau for three years, covering the collapse of the U.S.S.R.. He came to Washington in 1993 to report on the Bill Clinton White House.[3]

He has written and reported about the presidency of George W. Bush, and was one of a handful of reporters who were aboard Air Force One with President Bush on September 11, 2001.[3] Carney later won the 2003 Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency.

Carney was Time's Washington Bureau Deputy Chief from 2003 to 2005, and Chief from September 2005 until December 2008. He was assigned to the magazine's Washington Bureau in that tenure while also being able to write about politics and national affairs. Carney has also worked for CNN(another TIME Warner division) as a special correspondent."

I will tell you that I found Carney to be a journalist who would challenge both President Clinton and President Bush, and their Press Secretaries, when there was inconsistency or illogical explanations of policies or statements made by prior administration officials. He was not afraid to give the heat to get the truth.

He stands at the infamous podium these days and tries to sell the nonsense he must know makes no sense to his sensibilities. He would have, in his prior status, challenged, much like Ed Henry, Chuck Todd or Jonathan Karl, and others, do almost every day, the Press Secretary of the day for trying to sell garbage he knew made no sense. And much like these esteemed White House correspondents, he would have already verified, reverified, and verified yet a third time, his facts before he would ask his questions. 

Now, he tries to belittle, argue, criticize and just plain deny the facts these men and women know to be true before they ask. In his prior life, he would have been as dogged as these people to get to the truth of the latest pronouncement by the President or administration officials.

He appears uncomfortable up there each day, trying as he might, to find a scintilla of truth to espouse in all the dissembling that goes on in this administration. One thing positive I can say about all this: he gives his best effort to make truth out of nonsense. 

I get that he is the spokesman for the President; every Press Secretary is. But, he also needs to maintain his self worth, his self esteem, his own identity. I suspect, listening to Robert Gibbs occasionally criticize the President and other members of the administration, that he resigned because he had too much self-respect to continue to be its front man, its voice each day when HE knew it was all nonsense.

But, sadly, Jay Carney is nothing but a lapdog to Barry. To me, he has lost all journalistic integrity for what he stands there and tries to sell each day. Yes, he tries to be a loyal player in an administration that he would vilify if he were a White House correspondent, rather than its Press Secretary.

And that's the conundrum. He was once great journalist but now he is a toady. He has lost all his integrity for some perceived stature and a healthy paycheck. And now, he is no longer believable. 

For these and so many other reasons, Jay Carney MUST resign.

"What greatness does a man achieve if, in the end, he loses his soul?"

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