McCarthyism Watch

[frombadtraverse]

Dan Guthrie worked at the Grants Pass Daily Courier in Oregon for ten years and was a columnist, on and off, for seven of them. "During that time, I'd won quite a few awards, including best columnist in Oregon," he says. But one recent column cost him his job. It was called, "When the Going Gets Tough, the Tender Turn Tail," and it ran September 15.

Guthrie was the columnist who said Bush "skedaddled" on September 11. "The picture of Bush hiding in a Nebraska hole" was "an embarrassment," he wrote. "The President's men are frantically glossing over his cowardice."

A week later, the publisher fired him, even though the city editor and the editor had signed off on the piece, Guthrie says. "I told them this was going to be hot, and they approved it as it stood."

A few days later, the editor, Dennis Roler, issued a front-page apology, entitled, "This Is No Time to Criticize the Nation's Leader: Apology for Printing Column." The final paragraph reads: "In this critical time, the nation needs to come together behind the President. Politics, and destructive criticism, need to be put aside for the country's good. Unfortunately, my lapse in judgment hurt that positive effort, and I apologize."

Today, Guthrie is picking up unemployment, and he's almost philosophical about journalism: "You wish newspapers would be better than they are. You think they have this covenant with the First Amendment. But they don't, especially in times of crisis."

Tom Gutting worked for the Texas City Sun, and on September 22, he, like Guthrie, criticized Bush for not returning to Washington on September 11. "There was W. flying around the country like a scared child seeking refuge in his mother's bed after having a nightmare," he wrote, adding: "What we are stuck with is a crippled President who continues to be controlled by his advisers. He's not a leader. He's a puppet."

The day the piece ran, says Gutting, "the publisher assured me straightaway that he wouldn't fire me." But a few days later, the publisher, Les Daughtry Jr., changed his mind.

Daughtry, too, issued a front-page apology, saying Gutting's column was "not appropriate to publish during this time."

Gutting is unemployed. "I'm still looking for a job," he says. "I'm hoping it will end soon. I think I've been pretty much blacklisted from the small papers the company owns."


'Criticism has nothing to do with Patriotism'-FBT :hhead:

[BitBender]

'Criticism has nothing to do with Patriotism'
Most of this 'war' being fought now is all about physchological impacts, and fear instilled. While I wasn't a fan of these people losing their jobs, I can understand the fervor their employers had. I probably wouldn't have fired them, but I would have made them cover military ONLY stories for about 10 years until they understand some basic things:

In time of direct national attack (something I don't believe has happened sonce the revolutionary war), the immediate protocol is to isolate the top leaders of our nation, and protect their safety. Until the depth and breadth of the threat is known, and understood, and verified, only then will posture's relax.

This is pretty much a leftover from the cold war days, but is a completely effective procedure for ensuring the command and control structures of our government remain in effect.

Those of us that have served, can tell you that attacks are almost NEVER single pronged, involve a variety of offensive moves cordinated, and contrived to confuse the enemy, while completing the objective.

For professional journalists to overlook this important element of our national security, and use it as a osmosis for calling something cowardly, is simply a display of general incompetence, not criticism.

On 9/11, alot of the things that we used to believe about being safe here in the US disappeared.

Does that mean a complete return to McCarthyisim is in order? I think not. Already the lawyers on all sides are lining up to contest some of the governments actions in these matters. And for sure, the media will not hesitate to make sure that each and every person that reads/watches the news knows the outcomes of these proceedings. And I too, will follow them, just as we all will.

1st Amendment rights have not died, not at all. What has happened is a feeling of patriotisim amoung us, that does not tolerate those that would call us cowardly. And to call Bush cowardly, at that moment in time, was to call America itself a coward.