aka Russell Mokhiber
Scottie & Me
(formerly known as Ari & I)
******
Inside the White House Briefing Room
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, February 15, 2005; 9:45 AM
As the case of Jim Guckert, AKA Jeff Gannon has amply demonstrated, the bar for getting into the White House Briefing Room is pretty low.
But the fact of the matter is that the White House press office and the press corps have a long tradition of tolerance when it comes to eccentrics in their midst.
The current crop includes Lester Kinsolving, Raghubir Goyal, Connie Lawn and Russel Mokhiber -- each wondrously special in their own way.
Dana Milbank wrote in The Washington Post in 2002 how they can sometimes be useful foils for a wily press secretary: "Want to change the subject to foreign affairs? Call on Raghubir Goyal of the India Globe (he'll ask about the perfidies of Pakistan) . . . or Connie Lawn (a freelancer with particular interest in the Middle East). . . .
"Want to end the briefing by turning the whole thing into a circus? You might choose Russell Mokhiber of the Corporate Crime Reporter (he'll launch into a tirade about greed), or Baltimore radio personality Lester Kinsolving (he'll ask about how 'the Reverend Mr. Jackson impregnated his mistress and used tax-exempt contributions to get her out of Chicago'). Within seconds, the wire service reporters in the front row will beg for an end to the briefing."
But they're also part of the atmosphere.