The Senate Press
Rogues Gallery

Earlier this week, I told you about how WorldNetDaily has been systematically denied permanent congressional press credentials by the Senate Press Gallery.

I mentioned that this discrimination against the Internet’s leading independent newssite comes while the committee bestows credentials to official government mouthpieces such as Egypt’s Al-Ahram and China’s Xinhua News Agency. But time and space considerations did not permit me to examine this hypocrisy in more detail.

Let’s take a look at Al-Ahram – credentialed as a legitimate newspaper to cover the U.S. Congress.

According to an Associated Press dispatch last week, Al-Ahram has reported that the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. were not carried out by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida, but rather by Israel’s Mossad.

“The Jews and the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad are behind this vicious attack on the United States,” wrote Gamal Ali Zahran last October, according to the AP. The writer reportedly repeated the unsubstantiated rumor that thousands of Jews who worked at the World Trade Center did not show up to the office Sept. 11.

Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Zvi Mazel, said the Egyptian press – including the official state news organ Al-Ahram – sow the “seeds of hatred for the next 50 years” with such reports.

The editors of Egypt’s three largest papers – including Al-Ahram – are appointed by the government in Cairo and the government owns the newspaper printing presses in the country.

Let’s face it. By credentialing such “news organs” in Washington, the Senate Press Gallery is fostering this kind of hate speech and bestowing a recognition on government propaganda agents unfit to cover the U.S. Congress.

Yet, WorldNetDaily, an independent voice relied on by millions of Americans for their news coverage, is denied such access.

Do you get the picture?

I propose a solution for the Senate Press Gallery: Revise your rules for accreditation. Drop Al-Ahram and the other propagandists and give WorldNetDaily their credentials.

Amazingly, the Senate Press Gallery has rules against representatives of the U.S. government, but no rules against those representing foreign governments.

If you agree with me, let the czars of the Senate Press Gallery know. You should contact Bob Petersen, the director, and Joe Keenan, the deputy director. I’m sure, being the open-minded fellows they are, they will welcome your e-mail.

This would be a good move for them and the institution they represent. After all, it’s a scandal that the Senate Press Gallery credentials as legitimate journalists paid foreign agents who are more likely spies than people who follow the tenets of the free press.

Keenan and his colleagues need to understand the governments of China, Vietnam, Egypt and other despotic, authoritarian regimes do not send “correspondents” to Washington to report freely and fairly on the events of the day. They send them there to serve those governments.

Paul Sperry, WorldNetDaily’s longtime Washington bureau chief, on the other hand, has been a credentialed investigative reporter covering the Capitol for many years. Prior to joining the staff of WorldNetDaily, he served as Washington bureau chief for Investor’s Business Daily. He’s still the same journalist today – plying his trade on the Internet – that he was when he toiled for a national print newspaper. Maybe better.

It’s a disgrace that WorldNetDaily is being denied the same access to our Capitol that is freely given by the Senate Press Gallery to the hate press of foreign regimes. Don’t you agree? Times are a-changing, and the beltway press club had better figure it out.

I think it’s time to up the ante. I am no longer just demanding that my independent news agency be treated equally with the foreign agit-prop press. Now I want them out of my Capitol and I want our courageous, skilled, intrepid, veteran American reporter in.

Is that too much to ask?

For a full year, we’ve played the Mr. Nice Guy role. We’ve answered every question we’ve been asked. We’ve explained the facts of life to the committee. And we’ve been insulted and degraded – treated as second-class journalists and been seated in the back of the bus behind paid agents of foreign governments masquerading as reporters.

Now I’m asking your help in exposing this scandal and righting this wrong.

Once again, here are the men at the helm of the Senate Press Gallery – Bob Petersen, the director, and Joe Keenan, the deputy director. Let them hear from you soon.