General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: John King of CNN just said [View all]gratuitous
(82,849 posts)King doesn't owe confidentiality to a Senator who texts him out of the blue. As far as I'm concerned, King's announcement is nothing more than grandstanding for himself: Lookit the Kewl Kidz I run with! If this is just a private little tee-hee between a Senator and one of his pet reporters, King should have kept it to himself and not announced on the air.
I'd love for the text message to be 100% true, but by not identifying his source, King's blurb lacks credibility. I hated that Pumpkinhead Russert's default setting when he picked up the phone was "off the record." Time has not improved my attitude toward reporters who don't tell us who's telling them things. This isn't a matter of national security. There's nothing classified about a Senator's opinion. And an unsolicited text doesn't automatically carry a confidential stamp just because King doesn't want to put his good buddy on the spot. This ain't beanbag; people are suffering and dying because of that maniac in the White House. We need people to put their sacred honor on the line against him, not tell us years from now that they bravely sent an anonymous text message to some cable reporter.