Reporter dresses down DeMint on knowledge of resolution<\/p>\n
In a move that raised eyebrows last week, David Rogers, a political reporter for The Wall Street Journal, publicly questioned Sen. Jim DeMint\u2019s (R-S.C.) knowledge of a bipartisan Iraq war resolution introduced by some of his colleagues.<\/p>\n
The resolution, introduced by ranking Armed Services Committee member Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), and cosponsored by Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.), disagrees with President Bush\u2019s troop surge but supports vigorous operations against al Qaeda in Anbar province.<\/p>\n
In a press briefing of GOP senators who disagreed with the resolution \u2014 they included DeMint, John Cornyn (R-Texas) and David Vitter (R-La.) \u2014 Rogers pointedly asked DeMint, \u201cDid you read the resolution?\u201d<\/p>\n
DeMint, who looked embarrassed, replied that he read the summary of the resolution. Other reporters began to snicker. But Rogers didn\u2019t let up. In a classroom moment, he lectured DeMint on the contents of the resolution.<\/p>\n
And as it happens, there is no summary of the three-page resolution. What Rogers may not know is that DeMint was referring to an inner-office summary of all the competing resolutions that his aides had prepared for him.<\/p>\n
DeMint\u2019s aides expressed to bystanders that they considered Rogers\u2019s questioning a cheap shot but would not say anything on the record. \u201cWe decline to comment,\u201d said DeMint\u2019s spokesman, Wesley Denton.<\/p>\n
A Senate Republican aide who attended the press conference remarked, \u201cIt\u2019s a reporter\u2019s job to ask tough questions, but continuously interrupting a senator\u2019s response is rude and inappropriate regardless of how long you\u2019ve been covering Capitol Hill. His behavior definitely raised a lot of eyebrows among those who were there that morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rogers, however, had little to say about his nervy behavior: \u201cMr. DeMint has not complained to me about my question,\u201d the longtime Capitol Hill reporter said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
David really should write a book when he retires. He would likely want to write on something regarding Vietnam (he is a Veteran and definitely appreciates Veteran legislators, i.e. McCain). I think the stories he could tell about Congress would be fascinating. There are few people with his knowledge about the inside workings of Congress. He may not want to because he is someone who doesn’t like the attention or and definitely doesn’t like the inside beltway baseball. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem like the type to do this.<\/p>\n
Before I go to bed, I have one good David story. When I was in High School, I came to DC for a Conference. They let us loose on the Hill for a few hours. I had prearranged to meet up with David. It was the summer after 9\/11, so security was tighter. Instead of having me wait in line with all other visitors and staffers, David took me to a side door of the capital and got a security guard to let us in. He then took me up to where his desk was in a press room, slapped a press intern sticker on me, and off we went. He took me to right outside the House Chamber, the Senate Appropriations room, and he asked who I wanted to see. One of my choices was Gephardt, the minority leader at the time. David then took me to his office and asked if he was available. The staffer there checked, and she said it would be just a minute. David then whipped out of his pocket a scrap of cloth that he called a tie, did a Windsor knot, and just sort of chuckled that he had to look presentable. We then went in; Gephardt knew David, and then spoke to me for a bit about the Cardinals and SLU. It was an absolute thrill for me. (We later went to see Senator Bond, but David said that the Senator probably wouldn’t want to see him, and we parted then, which was slightly humourous).<\/p>\n
Over the past three plus years, I probably should have made more efforts to see David. He has never been unwelcoming to me, and I will probably regret not making more of an effort. Just hope he will be free for lunch tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I should really be in bed, but tonight was one of those nights where something caught my attention. The internet then proceeded to suck me in while I searched on a topic. Tomorrow, I am planning to go to the Hill to see a Kerry v. Gingrich discussion. I am not going for the discussion […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.steverogers.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.steverogers.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.steverogers.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.steverogers.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.steverogers.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.steverogers.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.steverogers.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.steverogers.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.steverogers.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}