Some politicians are worth investigating.

Rather than just babble on and on like I did in the last blog, I think I’ll just give links to what intelligent people had to say and comment on that.

This article is very comprehensive (codeword for long), but it tackles the issue of trust vs. truth that so many journalists deal with on a daily basis. Mark Feldstein points out in the article that every journalist’s dream is to make big discoveries like those of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein; it isn’t often that someone will stop and really consider the consequences of their actions when the possibility of fame looms nearby. Granted, Woodward and Bernstein weren’t most concerned with the hopes of being famous, but the success of these men has created a precedent for other aspiring journalists. The article also tells of how the government-media relationships changed on a smaller level.

“The media's ‘gotcha’ questioning is also the product of White House evasion and duplicity, which has continued since Nixon's resignation. Indeed, just as journalism has grown more aggressive since Watergate, so, too, has political spin. Investigative reporter Polk, now a senior producer at CNN, believes that ‘politics has changed more as a result of Watergate than journalism has, to the benefit of politicians more than journalists. Even in the Nixon White House, there was at least a camaraderie of proximity among officials who worked near reporters. Now, not only are the doors closed, but administrations are much better at controlling leaks of sensitive information.’ ”

More recently, the discovery of Giuliani’s flagrant use of thousands in taxpayers’ money is a common-day example of investigative journalism at work. Yes, the scandal is minor (so minor, that I’m not really even sure why it’s still a leading story on many websites), but even this fairly insignificant slip-up will no doubt cost Giuliani in the polls. Before this story, he had ratings of anywhere between the upper twenties and lower thirties; his lead among the other Republican candidates is fairly substantial. Personally, I don’t like him, and I like him even less now. I don’t think that the presidency is the next step for him; I’m sorry Rudy, I know you were mayor of the biggest city in the country during the biggest terrorist attack in the country, but be a senator or a governor or something. Then we’ll talk. Now, John McCain, he was a POW during the Vietnam War; we should just inaugurate him now.

This article shows how the ex-mayor of NYC feels about Giuliani’s abuse of power.