JOE CONASON
Conason was refuting the argument of Presidential Press Secretary Ari Fleischer {618120} who had used the secrecy of the Constitutional Convention in 1789 to justify the Vice President’s secret meetings with energy businessman to make government energy policy.
Trent Lott was the Senate Majority Leader and at Strom Thurmond’s birthday party made a speech that the country would have been much better off had Strom been elected President when he ran as a 3rd party candidate on a program of legal segregation and racism. Few of the major media reported on this, but Conason and few others published it on the Internet, some TV stations picked it up, and soon the major media were all writing or broadcasting about it. Lott was forced to resign as Republican Majority Leader.
Joe Conason is an American journalist, author and liberal political commentator. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of The National Memo, a daily political newsletter and website that features breaking news and commentary. Since 2006, he has served as editor of The Investigative Fund, a nonprofit journalism center.