Oh Lord. People over at FishBowlDC--and one mysterious, unnamed "White House scribe"-- are having fits over the Greg Kelly promotion.
"Kelly's military experience....seems a rather glaring conflict on the White House beat."
I guess every cable news reporter who covers, say, terrorism is suffering a similar glaring conflict---his or her experience as a member of the human race, which, last time I checked, was marked for death by Al Queda.
"How objectively can he do his job when the White House will be constantly making decisions that could bear on whether Kelly is called up for active duty and sent to war? Then there's that little question of since the President is Kelly's supreme commander, will Kelly have to salute the President in certain situations?"
Why, yes, this makes a ton of sense. When Kelly is asked a question on-air that has a bearing on the Marines and being called up, he will no doubt motion to an apple in his hand and pretend to still be chewing, to avoid answering the question. And if Kelly's in a situation where he has to salute the President, it's a pretty good bet he won't have a reporter's notepad in the other hand.
And finally, the real beef reveals itself:
"Another White House scribe chimes in: 'Par for the course from Fox. What do you expect? No presumption of objectivity there. At least the conflict of interest is obvious in this case.'"
If Kelly had gone to work as an MSNBC WH correspondent, he'd have to carry a broom with him just to make his way through the red, white and blue ticker tape that would be thrown at him by the media cognoscenti at every turn.
Kelly will survive these green-eyed mosquito bites of criticism. After all, unlike his detractors, he's seen worse. Literally.
