I have not mentioned this episode because I really, truly, don’t care. I do find all the shock and outrage on both sides a little amusing:
– You mean to tell me that some newspapers and newspaper reporters sometimes use press releases verbatim? Really- Democrats better not push too hard on this one, or they are going to put half of the media exposure from their activist groups ouot of business.
– You mean to tell me that Democrats are furious that there might be someone in the White House Press Corps who is not overtly hostile to everything the administration does?
– Really, I am shocked to learn the White House Communications office might treat someone who tends to give them favorable coverage with kid gloves. Really- I am just flabbergasted that might happen.
– You mean to tell me a few wingnut Democrats in the House and Senate are going to try to treat this like Watergate? Really, I am shocked.
– What? I don’t believe it. I find it unbelievable that Democrats and their partisan bloggers might gleefully out a gay man,simply because he does not adhere to the party line. They have never done that before. People that might do that might even call Condi Rice a ‘House Nigger’ or call Colin Powell and ‘Uncle TOm.’ That would never happen, you know.
Really- no one looks very good with all this faux outrage. And this will be my last post on the issue.
Jeff
Stuff like this is making the left look every bit as kooky, if not kookier, than the far-right in their full “Get Clinton/Arkansas Project” mode.
Hey, wait. Arkansas Project, Media Matters for America. The only constant here is that pathological liar David Brock.
BeingThere
wow talk about missing the point.
to quote from another source: “Gannon/Guckert’s problem wasn’t that he was a conservative, it’s that he used an alias to obtain a press pass for a fake news organization that served as a surrogate for a Republican political operation.”
let’s see: imagine if the clinton administration had given a white house press pass to an individual using a fake name who tossed up softball questions of the like that gannon did, all the while knowing that it was not his real name and that he was there under false pretenses. I’d say you guys would be popping a vein or two about how it just goes to show how dishonest and untrustworthy the president is.
equally alarming is the fact that this seems to fit into a pattern of media manipulation by this administration, which clearly sees nothing wrong with that at all. If this was an isolated incident then it would probably blow over pretty quickly. but it’s not.
one question: why did Congress refuse gannon a media pass and the white house give him one? And how did gannon manage to get a hold of documents unavailable to any other media source?
Frank Lautenber sums it up quite nicely:
Dear Mr. McClellan,
I am writing to request that you immediately release documents to my office relating to the White House press credentials of James D. Guckert, a.k.a. “Jeff Gannon.” Specifically, I am seeking documentation related to the question of which name Mr. Guckert/Gannon used when applying for credentials, and which name was on the official White House press credentials he received. Additionally, I am seeking documents indicating whether Mr. Guckert/Gannon received a “hard pass” or daily passes from your office. Despite your assertions to the contrary, at least one White House reporter has revealed that Mr. Guckert/Gannon appeared to have “hard pass” credentials.
As you may know, Mr. Guckert/Gannon was denied a Congressional press pass because he could not show that he wrote for a valid news organization. Given the fact that he was denied Congressional credentials, I seek your explanation of how Mr. Guckert/Gannon passed muster for White House press credentials.
I have led the effort in the Senate to investigate a number of instances of troubling propaganda efforts by the Administration. The Government Accountability Office has agreed to my requests to investigate various attempts at media manipulation: fake television news stories touting both the new Medicare law and the “No Child Left Behind” education program; a study rating individual journalists on their “favorability” to Republican education policies; and the payment to journalist Armstrong Williams.
Since the Armstrong Williams controversy became public, Administration payments to two other journalists, Maggie Gallagher and Michael McManus, have come to light. Given the backdrop of these scandals, coupled with Mr. Guckert/Gannon’s role in recent White House press briefings and press conferences, it is understandable that the circumstances of Mr. Guckert/Gannon’s credentialing have raised suspicion.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Sincerely, Frank R. Lautenberg
Steve
to quote from another source: “Gannon/Guckert’s problem wasn’t that he was a conservative, it’s that he used an alias to obtain a press pass for a fake news organization that served as a surrogate for a Republican political operation.”
let’s see: imagine if the clinton administration had given a white house press pass to an individual using a fake name who tossed up softball questions of the like that gannon did, all the while knowing that it was not his real name and that he was there under false pretenses. I’d say you guys would be popping a vein or two about how it just goes to show how dishonest and untrustworthy the president is.
Okay, those are fair points. But why raise the man’s sexual orientation? Personally I think the Left enjoyed outing him, which indicates to me they are not nearly as open as they claim and are simply better at hiding their homophobic tendencies, generally speaking.
BeingThere
The problem is that Gannon claims to be a born-again Christian and wrote a number of gay-baiting articles (he defended Santorums bestiality analogy for instance) that were used by righties like Hannity and Limbaugh among others as legitimate sources of information. Now it turns out that he may have been gay himself. So yes, his background is relevant to the story, but no, it’s really not the main focus of the issue at all.
Sorry to keep posting other’s quotes but they explain it better than I can:
“James Pinkerton, a media critic for Fox News, told the online magazine Salon.com. He recalled that in the six years he worked for Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, the White House was “strict about who got in. It’s inconceivable to me that the White House, especially after 9/11, gives credentials to people without doing a background check. … If [Gannon] was walking around the White House with a pass that had a different name on it than his real name, that’s pretty remarkable.”
“It’s not about “gay sex,” folks. Geez. Reporters here the word “gay” somewhere in the story and they get all squeamish. This isn’t a sex story. And it’s not a gay story. It’s a story about the Bush administration continuing its agenda of using fake media to put out its message. It’s the Bush administration not seeming to care, still today, that a guy with apparent ties to male prostitution Web addresses is getting access to the president and CIA documents. The White House is literally laughing this story off. That’s the story.”
As for the general practice of looking into someone’s background for damaging info, what about the investigation into Ward Churchill’s claim of native ancestry conducted by righties at the moment? Is that relevant to his statements about 9-11? Yet that’s become the main focus of a lot of righties these days. Churchill’s an idiot for saying what he did, but does it matter whether he lied about having native ancestry? Gannon’s apparent hidden homosexuality is considerably more relevant considering what he wrote about gay issues.
Kimmitt
Democrats better not push too hard on this one, or they are going to put half of the media exposure from their activist groups ouot of business.
Oh, no, Bre’r Fox, don’t throw me into that briar patch!
Bob
No mention of the Plame memo? Apparently Gannon aka Whatever leaked a memo about Plame. Y’all remember Valerie Plame? The CIA agent whose cover was blown by someone in the White House, a felony and violation of our NATIONAL SECURITY?
So now we have the guy using a fake name for a fake news service paid for by Republican operatives, treated as a favorite of the White House press officer, who was lobbing softball questions to Bush and McClellan on a regular basis for two years who now, it seems, to have been playing the part of leaking information to the public for someone in the White House committing felonies in their plans to discredit opposition to their plans to wage a war in Iraq.
You know, you guys should be outraged. These BushCo guys keep lying to you. And yet you invent outrages and lie to yourselves.
You guys deserve Bush and his corrupt cronies. The rest of us don’t.
George Saras
Hey, Bob! You are one glorious asshole!! One can look forward to reading your stupid-ass posts with a great deal of amusement. Only a complete and total idiot such as yourself could possibly write such utter nonsense.
I understand that you are still diddling your nephew, but what the hell…you don’t have anything else to do with your time since they released you from the “place.”
Love ya Babe.
The Lonewacko Blog
Why do “liberals” hate gay people?
HH
“wrote a number of gay-baiting articles (he defended Santorums bestiality analogy for instance)”
This just in – not all gay people (or non-homophobes) believed Santorum was “gay baiting.” Perhaps “Gannon” took him, you know, IN CONTEXT.
Atrios, et al. for a while there delighted in attacking Sullivan for his sexuality… remember the “bareback scandal?” One blogger, Digby, wrote on Media Whores Online on how Sullivan “had the vapors” for Bush, etc. This is nothing new… and really, David Brock is one to talk when it comes to gays writing for conservative publications who haven’t always been forthcoming. And I don’t need to tell you about the feigned outrage over using a fake name. Have you SEEN most lefty blogs (and commenters)? The hypocrisy is far too thick to take any of this seriously.
HH
Yeah the supposed “memo” pointed out that Plame had recommended Wilson for the job – and what do you know a Congressional investigation agreed! And “Gannon,” for whatever its worth said way before this “scandal” ever happened, that the administration did not give it to him. Like it really matters.
HH
And somehow Helen Thomas (who was born before the idea of an “alias” had ever been invented) is taken completely seriously writing a friggin’ opinion column for the Hearst News Service. So I guess you can be as opinionated as you like, just use your real name all the time, except when blogging (in some cases to far more readers than Talon News ever got while working for “media criticism” organizations and being feted by major political parties) and a “news service” which owns a printing press or cameras. Is that it?
Mirramele
OT but I found a site offering primary sources on Ward Churchill
and thought you might be interested
http://www.pirateballerina.com/index.php
It has primary documents and evidence organized and indexed by topic:
1. all the pdf files from the American Indian Movement Documents on Churchill
2. the pdf fils of academic research demonstrating academic fraud found in his research
3. very old interviews with Churchill over his battle with AIM, his claim to Indian ancestry, his road to tenure and so forth.
4. documentation on the professional reviews of his publications
5. documentation on his publishers and their reputations
The site is set up for easy access for research
Most of it cannot be found through a google search but was accumulated by a combined research effort. Anyone wishing to use the documents for further research on Mr. Churchill may help themselves.
Steve
As for the general practice of looking into someone’s background for damaging info, what about the investigation into Ward Churchill’s claim of native ancestry conducted by righties at the moment? Is that relevant to his statements about 9-11? Yet that’s become the main focus of a lot of righties these days. Churchill’s an idiot for saying what he did, but does it matter whether he lied about having native ancestry? Gannon’s apparent hidden homosexuality is considerably more relevant considering what he wrote about gay issues.
BeingThere,
Why don’t you just write, “But mommy they did it first.”
Sheesh.
GlennK
If “W” out right had anyone who asked “real” questions at his few and far between Press conferences taken out afterwards and shot the right wing blogsphere and media would find a way to justify his actions. No matter what “W” says or does is beyond reproach to these people. All critical thinking and review of this administration’s actions, words and deeds are off the table. Now if you want to talk endlessly about Clinton and Monica etc.. no problem.
Mikey
You guys need to come down. This guy isn’t that big of a deal. Some members of congress are going to score political points off it. The Secret Service will investigate this guy inside out – he’ll probably wish he was never born after that.
Tempest in a Teacup.
Arty
Ohhhh, a story about a sexual devient in the Whitehouse and evidence of partsian media hacks lobbing softball questions at the President. If that doesn’t bring back memories of the Clinton years….
Mikey
Arty:
If I read this correctly, the guy attended press briefings, he didn’t work for the US gov’t. Really not much here at all.
Arty
Mikey
“Really not much here at all.”
Unless you count the entertainment value of watching the shit-hemmorage the lefties are having. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Mikey
Oh the entertainment value of watching someone expend all of their energy on nothing?
Well, yeah, there is that. I was just stating that there was no real substance involved.
shark
YAWN. The left takes down some nobody, I guess that’s their response to Dan Rather.
When Eason Jordan is run out of CNN, will they go after the reporter for an even more insignificant “news service”?
PS- It’s fun to see the left defending a McCarthyistic investigation against someone who holds intolerable political beliefs (conservative). If we ever decided to investigate the reporters in that briefing room, anyone care to take bets on how many of them would be caught with some connection to Soros money???
Robin Roberts
Shark, “when” is now. Jordan resigned today.
Bob
Interesting that Gannon/Guckert got his press pass four days after his Talon News Service internet site was set up. Sounds very much like another Armstrong Williams. If anyone here really thinks that this guy came off the street with a fake ID and got daily passes to sit in the front row at McClellan’s conferences and ask questions that slander Demos and the people in the White House didn’t know he was using an alias and didn’t know who he was working for and what his purpose there was, you should stop bogarting what you’re smoking and pass the pipe.
You bully boys must love this. News doesn’t matter. You love to lap up the lies.
[George, you are a pitiful little scumbag, but since you can’t actually discuss any issue here, I guess you might as well slander people you are incapable of understanding. It clarifies the level of your discourse to anyone in doubt.
[By the way, Saras, you were going to tell us about how things were in your old country when the fascists took over. You were waxing about your old neighborhood in Athens and then shut down just when we were going to hear about what the generals did to dissidents, so unless you’ve got some kind of mental block or you’re ashamed of what you or your folks did during the military dictatorship, why not share it with us?]
Back to the thread: This Gannon guy was an in-house shill for BushCo, asking softball questions that were probably written by McClellan. If he ever surfaces again (he may be wearing cement shoes) maybe we’ll find out some more about him. His news stories at Talon were just rewrites of Republican news releases.
But this is not even the most interesting story out of Washington. Now we’re getting all sorts of stuff on 9/11 that the White House suppressed before the election and guess what? Condi Rice lied! And Joe Wilson told the truth. And Richard Clarke told the truth.
There’s only one thing left to do: Can I get a Ward Churchill?
SPQR
Bob, I like how you whine about others slandering when … that’s all you do. You have zero evidence for your claims above. None, Zilch, Nada. Matches the rest of your work.
HH
“And Joe Wilson told the truth. And Richard Clarke told the truth.”
Since when does losing an election allow you to rewrite history? No less than the Daily Howler and The Seattle Times would beg to differ, just for example.
George Saras
Bob, you can’t handle the truth, as someone once famously said. You have demonstrated with your lengthy and paranoid rantings that you do not possess even a scintilla of functioning brain cells within that cranium atop your shoulders. In all seriousness, your delusional writings have convinced me that you are mentally deranged. Again, in full seriousness, I STRONGLY urge that you seek help before you inflict harm on either yourself or anyone who – God save them – may be close to you.
Love ya Babe.
Bob
SPQR, George Saras accused me of molesting a child, a child that doesn’t exist. George Saras doesn’t know me. To point out that Saras’ pedophilic fantasies are off-topic, that they confirm my theory about the brutal anti-intellectualism of some posters here, and that his use of his own fantasies show a lack of his grasp of the subject is not whining. But his fantasies of having sex with children is consonant with his fantasies of beating up people. He dreams of having brutal control over others, maybe like how his daddy slapped him around and mishandled him when he was a little boy. There was an excellent book, I think it was called PSYCHOSIS AND POWER, which talks about this kind of personality disorder when the individual is involved in state power. That’s why I am curious about Saras’ background in his “old country” of Greece. He began talking about it but backed off. My guess is that there is some family history of involvement with the fascist coup that took place there years ago. Every time I raise it he gets more outrageous and defensive.
As far as whether or not the White House knew that Guckert/Gannon was a fraud, was using phony IDs, and wasn’t a real reporter, that’s where your judgment has to come to use. Do you actually think that Guckert/Gannon got hold of a White House memo without knowing someone in the White House structure? Do you actually think that White House security is so lax that they would allow this guy in for years without running a complete background check?
I’ll let you make the call. Either the current administration is so incompetent that they don’t even screen White House reporters after 9/11, or that they knew very well who this guy was and allowed him to toss the softballs underhand for years. If you choose the latter, you have to decide if they just allowed this fake off the street to ask these questions or if this guy was part of the program.
You make the call. At a certain point, logic demands to be used.
Bob
HH, when you get a chance take a look at the papers that have come to light in the last couple of days, the papers that the Bush Administration had been witholding until after the election. Clarke and Wilson’s version of pre 9/11 events were confirmed, Rice is again proven to have been a liar for the administration. Forget the Daily Howler et al, go to the originals. It’s okay, take your time, read some stuff, you know. You don’t have to react (Mussolini called fascism “reaction,” you recall?), you just need to know. For your own sake.
John Cole
Bob- You do’t know what the hell youare talking about. The notion that COndi lied is absaurd, and you are referring to an idiotic post by Hunter on the Daily Kos.
The papers mention a threat of Al Qaeda and a need to possibly do something abnout them, which we all knew. Condi was accused of lying about Clarke turning over actionable plans, which never happened.
Try peddling your bullshit elsewhere.
Bob
No peddling here, Mister Cole. You’ve just got to read the Australian papers, apparently it’s not of interest locally that Condi, well, may have downplayed the notion of warnings to the administration about terrorists hijacking airplanes and crashing them into things. What was it? 52 FAA warnings in the six months leading up to 9/11? No one could have suspected something like that would take place, except for when the G-8 leaders met in Genoa, Italy and precautions were taken against hijackers targeting planes at the world leaders (including Dubya). Hell, you talk about about the NFL around here, what about “Black Sunday”? Okay, it was a hijacked blimp and not an airplane, but B-movie directors in Hollywood were hip to the idea decades ago.
Now Clarke’s memo is released.
Again, the choice is yours. Either the White House was totally incompetent or they intentionally let things go. You make the call, or call me names. Whatever’s easier on your little noggins.
By the way, while we’re on topic, anything more come up about Grover Norquist and his connections with Saudi terrorist funding streams? Now that’s one I hope the press will investigate. Maybe the Australian press because I bet Gannon/Guckert is not willing to go out on any limbs these days, if he’s got any left.
George Saras
Does anyone seriously think that Bob is in possession of his faculties? if you do, reread his posts in this thread.
capt joe
Faculties!?
Bob don’t need no stinkin’ faculties mang!
Robin Roberts
Bob, you continue to make continuous falsehoods. Guckert’s pass wasn’t fraudulent at all – that’s an invention by you without evidence. Your claims about his supposed possession of memos – without evidence.
And your claims about Clarke and Wilson reveal that you didn’t read the actual news stories in question.
As for slander, you have unclean hands.