Chi Trib’s Rudolph Bush has worth-reading page one story, “Rush, Gutierrez plead ignorance of travel rules,” about which a few points:

He says in third graf:

The fact that they didn’t file for a number of years and don’t remember receiving reminders of the rule raises questions about the House’s internal enforcement and the seriousness with which the chamber takes its ethics rules, analysts said.  (Italics added here and throughout)

But he quotes only one so-called analyst, the veteran liberal activist Fred Wertheimer (husband of Linda the NPR hostess), identifying him simply as “of the watchdog group Democracy 21,” not identifying Democracy 21, whose web site is much about nailing Tom De Lay — though for this story Wertheimer, of Common Cause fame, has no blame to cast on fellow lib-Dems Rush & Gutierrez, only on those who didn’t catch them:

“One of the problems here has been lax oversight of the rules. It’s clear that one of the reforms that is essential is to strengthen the role of the [ethics] committee and the House in overseeing and enforcing its rules.”

Meanwhile, Bush tells us

The other 19 members of the Illinois delegation were aware of the rule and regularly sent their travel disclosure forms, but Gutierrez’s files from 1997 to 2005 were all but empty, while Rush’s contained disclosures for several staff members but not for the South Side congressman himself. The House passed its travel disclosure rule in 1995.

Rush & G were not aware of the rule, however, and the rest of the story is their self-exculpation on various grounds, as this from G:

“I’m very unhappy and upset that my senior staff never filed any disclosure forms,”

leaving us to wonder, on a scale of one to ten, where does this unhappiness of his rank with Bush’s asking him about his travel vouchers in the first place?

As for Rush, he

took a somber tone about his failure to follow House rules, although he has yet to file travel disclosures for himself. He said he expects to make a complete filing by month’s end.

As do we taxpayers expect him to do but are not holding breath.

Main thing is, nobody told them about it:  There was “lax oversight,” said Wertheimer the DeLay pursuer.  Rush “wondered why he never received any notice.”  “No one knew that was the rule,” said Gutierrez.

A small voice is raised at the end of the story, however, to provide miniscule relief from this pity-the-poor-Congressman theme: 

Though neither Rush nor Gutierrez received any reminders from the clerk, not knowing the rules isn’t an excuse, said William Canfield, former general counsel for the Senate Ethics Committee.

“It’s sad. You’re supposed to know the rules if you are a member,” he said.

Way at the end.  Better late than never.

This in today’s Chi Trib, Experts debate diet’s link to breast cancer, jogs the memory about suppressed discussion of the role, and to what extent, played by having an abortion in getting breast cancer.  In any case, Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer: The ABC Link calls having an abortion “the most preventable risk factor for breast cancer.”  But “Why the Silence About Abortion and Breast Cancer?” asks Chi Trib columnist Dennis Byrne some months back.  He refers us to the very same Coalition, which is all about suppression of research results dating back to a 1986 Lancet article.  Etc., etc., etc.

But so-called women’s advocates have a hammerlock on mainstream reporters and editors, that peculiar breed who meet no one at parties who gives a hoot about such matters and besides, would rather not stick head above trench level, thank you, because it would be blown off.

Mitch Albom stole material.  Detroit Free Press’

Carole Leigh Hutton, publisher and editor, said the problems reflect a lack of familiarity with the paper’s rules on attribution. She pledged to take steps to address them. The paper’s ethics policy requires reporters to give credit when they use the work of others. 

says AP. 

The paper’s rules on attribution?  Not basic honesty or universally accepted rules of writing in civilized society?  She’s saying there have to be rules for this?

=============

Add this from Tapscott’s Copy Desk, where the Free Press story is excellently covered:

Since when do professional journalists have to be reminded that simple honesty dictates that they not present the work of others as if it was their own?

The Austin Bay blog has this at http://austinbay.net/blog/index.php?p=323#comment-7751.  It gets at the mentality of some of our best and brightest newsies, P. Jennings and M. Wallace.  Old news yes, 1989, but is it?

http://secure.mediaresearch.org/news/cyberalert/2001/cyb20011010.asp#4
===================
A reprint from the April 1989 MediaWatch, a monthly newsletter then-published by the MRC:

Peter Jennings and Mike Wallace Agree
Reporters First, Americans Second

In a future war involving U.S. soldiers what would a TV reporter do if he learned the enemy troops with which he was traveling were about to launch a surprise attack on an American unit? That’s just the question Harvard University professor Charles Ogletree Jr, as moderator of PBS’ Ethics in America series, posed to ABC anchor Peter Jennings and 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace. Both agreed getting ambush footage for the evening news would come before warning the U.S. troops.

For the March 7 installment on battlefield ethics Ogletree set up a theoretical war between the North Kosanese and the U.S.-supported South Kosanese. At first Jennings responded: “If I was with a North Kosanese unit that came upon Americans, I think I personally would do what I could to warn the Americans.”

Wallace countered that other reporters, including himself, “would regard it simply as another story that they are there to cover.” Jennings’ position bewildered Wallace: “I’m a little bit of a loss to understand why, because you are an American, you would not have covered that story.”

“Don’t you have a higher duty as an American citizen to do all you can to save the lives of soldiers rather than this journalistic ethic of reporting fact?” Ogletree asked. Without hesitating Wallace responded: “No, you don’t have higher duty… you’re a reporter.” This convinces Jennings, who concedes, “I think he’s right too, I chickened out.”

Ogletree turns to Brent Scrowcroft, now the National Security Adviser, who argues “you’re Americans first, and you’re journalists second.” Wallace is mystified by the concept, wondering “what in the world is wrong with photographing this attack by North Kosanese on American soldiers?” Retired General William Westmoreland then points out that “it would be repugnant to the American listening public to see on film an ambush of an American platoon by our national enemy.”

A few minutes later Ogletree notes the “venomous reaction” from George Connell, a Marine Corps Colonel. “I feel utter contempt. Two days later they’re both walking off my hilltop, they’re two hundred yards away and they get ambushed. And they’re lying there wounded. And they’re going to expect I’m going to send Marines up there to get them. They’re just journalists, they’re not Americans.”

Wallace and Jennings agree, “it’s a fair reaction.” The discussion concludes as Connell says: “But I’ll do it. And that’s what makes me so contemptuous of them. And Marines will die, going to get a couple of journalists.”

END Reprint

Stunned by the Trice reappearance (without explanation for absence), I forgot to take note that Schmich got back yesterday — “Illness’ 2 voices agree: Being sick is no fun at all.” She’s been sick and tells us about it, lightweightly describing a horse (hoarse?) race between “your eight-year-old” and “your 108-year-old.”

No problem. Chi Trib demographics clearly call for such, as its sales people put it at Media Kit:

Chicago Tribune’s sites are number one in total market reach for Chicago news and information Web sites (source: Media Metrix).  Beating out popular national sites like CNN.com and MSNBC.com, Chicagoans choose to get their online news from a trusted, local brand. Attracting a young, educated, and affluent audience, the Chicago Tribune sites reach more than a million readers every month. (Italics added)

Of course.  The Dippy Three — Schmich, Zorn, Trice — are there for a reason.  They are deemed to appeal to the young, the educated, the affluent — the future leaders of our great nation.  Why am I complaining?

On its discredited Koran-flushing story that led to riots and deaths abroad:

Newsweek’s editor, Mark Whitaker, apologized to the victims on Sunday and said the magazine inaccurately reported that U.S. military investigators had confirmed that personnel at the detention facility in Cuba had flushed the Muslim holy book down the toilet.

Not to its readers?  For snapping up a tip and running it gossip-like in good old breezy fashion, never suspecting there was a hot-to-trot anti-Musharraf Pakistani movie actor-activist there to read it aloud on the Muslim street?  Where was the sensitivity to The Street, about which we have heard so little lately? 

And be advised that what you have here is very mild commentary.  For link after link to informed indignation about Newsweek and its Michael Isikoff, author of the rumor, start with www.instapundit.com, which as usual is all over this thing.

Trice has re-appeared page one Metro in Chi Trib, leading with this:

A South Carolina Republican legislator, not known for his sensitivity and tact, incensed a bunch of people last month when he said he didn’t understand why women who are victims of domestic violence fall back into the arms of their abusers.

a) The commas are ridiculous.  b) “A bunch” is alarmingly chatty. 

In any case, she identifies the faintly damned legislator in paragraph two:

Rep. John Graham Altman made his comments just after helping to defeat a criminal domestic violence bill working its way through a legislative committee. That bill failed at the same time one protecting chickens passed.

They care more about chickens than women in South Carolina!  Point made in manner most droll. 

Etc.  Can’t read any more.  At any rate, she’s back, without explanation where she’s been for a week, having led fans and at least one observer to ponder her fate.  Maybe it took a week to put today’s column together, as opposed to the usual half week.

Flush Newsweek now?

Another day sans p-1 columnist in Chi Trib Metro section, sans Zorn, sans Schmich, sans Trice, sans everything but news.  In a daily newspaper.  Can you imagine that?

To the ramparts, cries Bishop Bruskewitz:

Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz has issued a blistering letter calling on Roman Catholics in the Lincoln Diocese to fight a federal decision requiring all employers to provide health insurance that pays for birth control, female sterilization procedures and “the morning after” pill.

He socks it to Obama’s secy of health and human services:

“The present secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, a bitter fallen-away Catholic, now requires that all insurance, even when issued privately, must carry coverage for evil and grave sin,” Bruskewitz wrote in the letter, which he instructed parish priests to read aloud to their congregations at Mass this weekend.

She’s been literally excommunicated, in fact:

Sebelius is among a number of Catholic politicians in the United States who have been banned from receiving Holy Communion because of their positions on abortion.

She was banned by Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kan., because, as Kansas governor, she vetoed strict anti-abortion legislation that her advisers told her was unconstitutional.

Bruskewitz confrere in Omaha is pushing the subject:

Archbishop George Lucas of Omaha has written a letter to be distributed to pastors next week, said Deacon Tim McNeil, chancellor of the archdiocese. Priests were asked to read the letter to parishioners or include it in their church bulletins.

The letter will ask Catholics in the Omaha Archdiocese to pray about the issue and to contact their congressional representatives to pass legislation overturning the rule.

“The bishop’s letter will state how this order negatively impacts the church in the U.S.,” McNeil said. “It’s a violation of religious liberty and our First Amendment rights.”

The bishops are putting out a “call to action” to try to overturn the rule, McNeil said. 

I love that “call to action” business.  It resonates, somehow.

The government plan has a wrinkle

The insurance rule, which does not require abortion coverage, exempts churches and other institutions whose primary purpose is to foster religious belief and that mainly employ people who hold those beliefs.

U.S. bishops, however, wanted a broader exemption that includes Catholic hospitals, universities and church-affiliated social services agencies.

They want to peel off the hospitals, which is where so much of bioethics hits the road.  They’d like to do away with the Catholic presence there and in social service?  Or denude it of Catholic identity?