From Americablog, the blog that brought you the Jeff Gannon scandal:

According to my source, Gannon’s insider tidbits were always on the mark. “Gannon’s stuff was always golden,” the producer says. My source says they kept asking themself, “how does this small news outfit get this info?”

Now, I’m not going to get into this story (for one thing, Americablog has been all over it; for another, I can’t believe we have to debate whether or not hookers should have White House press passes under fake names), other than to say: The problem with our current press corps in a nutshell!

“How does this small news outfit get this info?” How, indeed? Why, it’s so puzzling, someone oughta get right on it, do some investigation, figure it out!

Too bad we don’t have anyone around capable of, say, taking an extremely puzzling question and, you know, trying to find the answer.

Call your Congressperson! You may tell them something they didn’t know.

I called Congressman Mike Honda’s office today in Washington and I asked the nice young man who asnwered the phone (who, I assume, was not Mr. Honda) what the Congressman was planning to do in regards to the execrable deal the Department of Justice made with Wal-Mart>.

“What deal?” the man asked.

“Well, basically the DOJ made a settlement with Wal-Mart in regards to a child labor case that said, Hey, Wal-Mart, from now on, you go investigate yourself.”

“What?”

He might have been acting, but if he wasn’t I have the feeling he might make a note of it for the Congressman. I told him to call George Miller, find out what’s going on over there. Clearly no one else has called the office about this.

Call your Congresscritters, folks. Evidently the Democrats aren’t getting out word to their own side of the aisle fast enough. Do your part. The phone call’s not that expensive.

Find your Representative’s contact info.

Find your Senator’s contact info.

What a brilliant collection of quotes:

In 1992, a year after the first Gulf War, I heard Dick Cheney, then secretary of defense, say that the US had been wise not to invade Baghdad and get ‘bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq’. I heard him say: ‘The question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is: not that damned many.’

In February 2001, I heard Colin Powell say that Saddam Hussein ‘has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours.’

That same month, I heard that a CIA report stated: ‘We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since Desert Fox to reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction programmes.’

In July 2001, I heard Condoleezza Rice say: ‘We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.’

On 11 September 2001, six hours after the attacks, I heard that Donald Rumsfeld said that it might be an opportunity to ‘hit’ Iraq. I heard that he said: ‘Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.’

I heard that Condoleezza Rice asked: ‘How do you capitalise on these opportunities?’

…

I heard Tony Blair say: ‘Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a bit.’

I heard General Myers say: ‘Given time, given the number of prisoners now that we’re interrogating, I’m confident that we’re going to find weapons of mass destruction.’

I heard the president say: ‘Prisoners are being taken, and intelligence is being gathered. Our decisive actions will continue until these enemies of democracy are dealt with.’

I heard a soldier describe what they called ‘bitch in a box’: ‘That was the normal procedure for them when they wanted to soften up a prisoner: stuff them in the trunk for a while and drive them around. The hoods I can understand, and to have them cuffed with the plastic things – that I could see. But the trunk episode – I thought it was kind of unusual. It was like a sweatbox, let’s face it. In Iraq, in August, it’s hitting 120 degrees, and you can imagine what it was like in the trunk of a black Mercedes.’

…

I heard the president say: ‘I want to be the peace president. The next four years will be peaceful years.’

I heard Attorney General John Ashcroft say, on the day of his resignation: ‘The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved.’

I heard the president say: ‘For a while we were marching to war. Now we’re marching to peace.’

I heard that the US military had purchased 1,500,000,000 bullets for use in the coming year. That is 58 bullets for every Iraqi adult and child.

I heard that Saddam Hussein, in solitary confinement, was spending his time writing poetry, reading the Koran, eating cookies and muffins, and taking care of some bushes and shrubs. I heard that he had placed a circle of white stones around a small plum tree.

Read the whole thing.