Patrick Kennedy Calls Absentee Press 'Despicable'

The floor of the House of Representatives and the gallery overlooking it are often nearly deserted as lawmakers and reporters come and go in the course of long legislative days. But Rep. Patrick Kennedy took the absence of a large media contingent on Wednesday as a threat to democracy.

"Cynicism is one, two press people in the gallery," he shouted in an arm-waving one-minute rant. The American public is turned off, he said, because "they are not seeing their Congress do the work they were sent to do, and it is because the press -- the press of the United States -- is not covering the most significant issue of national importance and that is the laying of laws down. . . .

"It is despicable, the national press corps right now," he said.

Reporters often work on laptop computers in an office just outside the gallery, where they watch House and Senate proceedings live on C-SPAN. Even House members often toil away from the floor and arrive en masse when a vote is called.

Kennedy (D-R.I.) didn't see it that way. While the media cover the scandal surrounding the resignation of New York Rep. Eric Massa "24-7," he said, the House is ignored as it debates war and peace and other important issues. Kennedy, son of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, is serving his eighth term in the House, but has announced that he will not run for another.

His one minute scolding can be viewed on the CNN Web site.