Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
While being a working journalist can be a very satisfying career, there are times, as in any profession, when one can be embarrassed by how colleagues conduct themselves professionally.
Most times, it's simple things that can be easily written off as careless mistakes and forgotten. The other times, it gets so bad that it's not hard to under stand why our profession is often rated somewhere between loan sharks and Three-card Monte dealers on the public's opinion scale.
Case in point - Geraldo Rivera.
Relaxing the other evening, after a long, hard day working over the notebook and keyboard, I was surfing through the cable channels and happened onto the CNBC new network. They were in the middle of airing Geraldo Rivera's nightly news discussion program, modestly named for the host.
There, in my living room and those of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands - possibly even millions - of other living rooms, was the show's host indignantly voicing his displeasure with the current Independent Counsel's investigation of President Bill Clinton for possible perjury and obstruction of justice.
With phrases like "Zipper-Gate", "sex lies", and "Starr Chamber", Rivera repeatedly referred to the Independent Counsel's investigation as a "quest of a political zealot intent on driving a fine President out of office."
Emotional and hard-hitting, but I'm not buying it. I have my own suspicions about the scandal, I'll wait until the process reaches its logical conclusion and a report is handed down before reaching any firm conclusions.
But Geraldo has no such reservation. He knows, beyond any reasonable doubt, that this is a political with hunt and will stop at nothing in exposing the Evil Ken Starr and his hideous minions in their unholy war.
Far be it from Geraldo to let the facts get in the way of stirring up the partisan juices of the TV audience.
The fact that Starr was hired by Attorney General Janet Reno - a Clinton appointee, who has authorized every avenue Starr has investigated - doesn't matter. She must be a party to the conservative conspiracy to topple our popular President.
The fact that our President, who promised us "more rather than less; sooner rather than later," has stonewalled the inquiry at every turn, doesn't matter. Rivera is quick to point out this investigation is about sex, and lying and covering up about questions of sex isn't a crime. A fact Rivera knows personally - being a court-documented philanderer in his own right.
Well, I have a message for Rivera:
Gerry, lose the attitude and the indignation. Let's just wait and see what the final report has to say before we pass any judgments on the participants.
And, if you can't conduct yourself in a impartial and objective manor while moderating the debate on-air, then give up the chair to someone more capable of restraining their opinions.
