Friday, 29 Mar 2024

Kathy Kiely: 'The Senate is hiding from all of us with rules intended to hamstring reporters'

An impeachment is a trial of more than just the public official who has been accused of wrongdoing. It’s a test of our democratic institutions.

The Senate has already flunked an important part of the exam by hamstringing one of the democratic institutions that is supposed to check abuses of power: the free press.

In a radical departure from more than a century of tradition, lawmakers have decreed that the reporters who usually patrol the corridors on behalf of the public will not be allowed to do so. Instead they will be penned, like so many sheep, in designated areas, making it easy for senators to avoid prying eyes and pesky questions.

That means reporters won’t be able to stake out Senate leaders’ offices and senior senators’ Capitol “hideaways”, or wander through the nooks and crannies where interesting meetings and arm-twisting sessions are usually held.

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Nor will they be able to buttonhole senators in hallways and learn what they really think about something that just happened – by nabbing them before press secretaries and political consultants have a chance to spin genuine reactions into politically correct pablum.

I know all this because the tactics I’m describing are ones I employed during more than three decades as a reporter on Capitol Hill. We first got wind of the special deals Bill Clinton was offering to get his tax hike passed because we saw Cabinet officials going into the offices of wavering lawmakers.

We found out how appalled members of even his own party were about Republican Joe Wilson shouting “You lie!” in the middle of president Barack Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress because we caught up with them right outside the House Chamber – before they could get together and hammer out talking points.

Years after the fact, even press secretaries and Capitol Hill aides once burned by my dogged tailing of their bosses have expressed grudging admiration for them.

The idea that reporters pose security threats – and somehow that this is a problem only during president Donald Trump’s impeachment trial – is obviously false.

In reality, the current security scheme appears designed to protect lawmakers from reporters’ questions.

The writers of the First Amendment put plenty of speed bumps and potholes in the way of tyranny. That’s why democracy is a deliberately messy, awkward process.

Anyone who thinks it’s a better system than the alternative should be on the journalists’ side. Let them do their job. We’ll all be better off. Including the people who are trying to avoid their questions.

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