America - Foleygate Update

If Linda Foley thinks we are going to roll over and play dead like she is, over her now admitted, unsubstantiated claims that US troops target journalists, she'd better re-think that policy.

Media Slander reports on Hiwatha Bray's follow up phone calls with Foley's spokesperson.

At first Foley said she was talking about the "military" targeting journalists and not the "troops", which is ridiculous as you can't have one without the other.

Now she claims it was about "...how journalists have been scapegoated by forces in society..." But she was emphatic that journalists were being targeted as she put it "for real".

"Journalists, by the way, are not just being targeted verbally or ... ah, or ... ah, politically. They are also being targeted for real, um...in places like Iraq."

That's not scapegoating, that's outright slander.

Foley slandered our troops in public and yet she refuses to answer questions in public.

Johnson told me that Foley would speak to me off the record as a union member, but not for publication on a blog or anywhere else. I told her that this was unacceptable; Foley made her claim in a public venue and should have to defend it publicly.

She wasn't so shy when she was slandering our troops. Maybe it's because she now has the backing of the communists.

Foley shouldn't take too much comfort in that, as a member of her own union is now challenging her leadership of the union.

Today the nation's bravest men and women are fighting and dying on our behalf. We who are safe at home are under no obligation to support the war, but we have no right to lie about those who are fighting it, slandering them even as they risk their lives for our sakes. It's reprehensible, and I won't have it. That's why I'm asking for your write-in vote for an at-large seat on the Executive Committee of the BNG. In that position, I'll do my best to demand accountability from our national union leaders, and to uphold the honor of our profession.

In addition, I urge you to contact the Guild at (202) 434-7177 and demand an explanation. For more information on Foley's comments, visit my Web logchoosehonor.blogspot.com. Also, contact me by e-mail at watha@monitortan.com.

Over the weekend I have written to about two dozen on the Guild's contact list asking what they intend to do about Foley's slander of our troops during a time of war. I'll let you know if I get any replies.

In the meantime, I encourage you to write to those on the Guild's contact list and keep up the pressure on Foley to apologize or resign - like Eason Jordan.
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