Many members of the press are so prone to panic, so tied up in the illusion that they're Woodward/Bernstein redux; sticking it to the man, etc. - they forget to report the real news that people need to hear.

This time the man stuck back. General Honore struck the first blow against in the Berlin Wall of press self-centeredness with his now famous statement, "Don't Get Stuck on Stupid"

[Transcript here (thanks to Irwin Chusid)]

Male reporter: General, a little bit more about why that's happening this time, though, and did not have that last time...

Honore: You are stuck on stupid. I'm not going to answer that question. We are going to deal with Rita. This is public information that people are depending on the government to put out. This is the way we've got to do it. So please. I apologize to you, but let's talk about the future. Rita is happening. And right now, we need to get good, clean information out to the people that they can use. And we can have a conversation on the side about the past, in a couple of months.

While I love "don't get stuck on stupid", Honore's "right now, we need to get good, clean information out to the people that they can use" is my favorite quote.

Getting good, usable facts out to the people; what a concept.