Posted by
RME KRNL on Monday, August 17, 2009 11:45:13 AM
After Fox News White House correspondent Major Garrett was alerted last week by some of his viewers that they had received unsolicited emails from the WH, Garrett asked WH Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about it on Thursday, raising privacy issues. (As it happens, Garrett was later joined by the ACLU, of all groups. Who would have thought the very liberal ACLU and rather conservative Fox News would be on the same side of an issue? Go figure).
Gibbs gave one of his somewhat snarky and arrogant NON-answers and then basically stonewalled Garrett for the next few days as Garrett pursued trying to find out how the WH obtained people's private email addresses and why it was sending them unsolicited emails, mainly about ObamaCare.
Now, finally, the White House has provided its version of what happened. Politico.com's Mike Allen reports that WH spokesman Nick Shapiro said in a statement Sunday night: “We are implementing measures to make subscribing to emails clearer, including preventing advocacy organizations from signing people up to our lists without their permission when they deliver petition signatures and other messages on individual's behalf.” (Italics added for emphasis.)
So, the issue was raised on Thursday and surely could have been answered by someone by sometime Friday but the answer wasn't provided until late Sunday night. Talk about being able to claim credit for finally responding while at the same time trying to bury your answer out of the normal news cycle!
And did you notice that, once again, it's not the White House's fault? Heaven forbid that this White House should ever admit it made a mistake, much less actually and intentionally did something wrong. No, no, no, this time people's private email addresses were obviously but inadvertently obtained by the WH because, while these people didn't specifically opt in to receiving WH emails, they had apparently signed some kind of petition, letter, etc., etc., at some time or other, which some third party organizations (vague and kind of hard to trace, eh?) sent to the WH. So, it was these appropriately amorphous third party organizations' fault, you see -- NOT US! (What kind of ether do these people breathe -- and do they think if they pump enough of it into the news cycle that we will inhale it, too?)
Awww, now see, here I thought I was so "special" because I got three -- yes, THREE -- unsolicited emails from the WH, one from Obama and two from Axelrod. I was just SURE that I had earned a place on SOME kind of WH "enemies" list. Oh darn! Well, guess I'll just have to keep trying.
Just as I can't get over Axelrod's appearance somehow reminding me of a door-to-door salesman of some kind (Fuller brushes? Electrolux vacuums?), Gibbs reminds me of the overly large, overly self-important, overly privileged and overly boorish frat boy I sometimes ran across during my college days. You know the guy -- his daddy made sure he got into the right school and the right fraternity, had the right kind of clothes, the right kind of car and plenty of money, etc., but his daddy couldn't disguise the fact that his little boy wasn't quite as smart as he was arrogant and wasn't quite as polished as he was just plain used to being privileged and pampered.
You may also remember that the WH recently asked Americans to notify it of any "fishy" info, mainly pertaining to health care/insurance reform, that their family, friends or neighbors might casually mention or repeat. Well, the only thing "fishy" to me about the WH explanation of this latest apparent disregard for citizen privacy is that most of the organizations for and with which I've signed petitions, letters, etc., have specifically (in accordance with privacy and anti-spamming laws) stated that your email address may be requested for purposes of notifying you that your petition has been sent or for sending a copy of your letter back to you, etc., but that it will not be published or released to anyone else.
So, how do you explain that, Mr. White House Spokesperson? Anyone?
AFTERTHOUGHT: A poster named roxsteady claimed on Politico.com that Major Garrett and Fox News (I guess, along with the ACLU) were idiots for raising the question of the WH sending unsolicited emails to citizens and sought to excuse the WH by saying it is simply known as SPAM.
But isn't SPAM wrong, even illegal? Why, I think there are even LAWS.....and stuff.....against it. So, roxsteady, are you saying that Garrett, Fox News, etc., are idiots for even asking the questions, but the WH is okay for spamming its citizens, if in fact that's ALL it's doing?
Get a grip and stop excusing the Obama White House for everything. After all, normally AFTER they're CAUGHT, they do enough of that for themselves, usually by blaming someone -- and sometimes it seems, anyone -- else!