Andrew Sullivan finally weighs in on Jeff Gannon and his wonder penis:
I haven’t written about it because I agree completely with Glenn. The substantive case against Gannon is trivial; the irrelevant case against him (the one that’s fueled this story) is that he’s gay, has allegedly been (or still may be) a prostitute, and may not agree with everything the gay left believes (although I agree with David Corn that the evidence that Gannon has written anything even remotely “anti-gay” is laughable). The real scandal is the blatant use of homophobic rhetoric by the self-appointed Savonarolas of homo-left-wingery. It’s an Animal Farm moment: the difference between a fanatic on the gay left and a fanatic on the religious right is harder and harder to discern. Just ask yourself: if a Catholic conservative blogger had found out that a liberal-leaning pseudo-pundit/reporter was a gay sex worker, had outed the guy as gay and a “hooker,” published pictures of the guy naked, and demanded a response from a Democratic administration, do you think gay rights groups would be silent? They’d rightly be outraged. But the left can get away with anything, can’t they? Especially homophobia.
BTW- The idea that Gannon wrote about gay issues is simply absurd, and detailed at length by the much discussed (at least here) Corn piece. However, our intrepid progressives need an excuse to consider their witch hunt, so they will spin away. Once again, the fools at the Center for American Progress chime in (they sureare turning into the gift that keeps on giving), and it appears that talking about Kerry’s relationship with the gay community is Gannon’s cardinal sin.
Kimmitt
Hm, Sully’s baselessly accusing the Left of homophobia. It must be Friday.
Brian Linse
C’mon, John. The hipocracy of this fella comes from his carrying the water as a shill for an ADMINISTRATION that is brazenly anti-gay rights. Whether he personally ever wrote anything anti-gay is not at issue.
Sully’s own former web ads (do we all remember the infamous “bareback” personal ads he posted while HIV+ ?) likely clouds his always erratic judgment here.
Pretending that the anti-gay-rights Bush Admin’s use of an active gay prostitute as a faux news shill *isn’t* news is just silly.
Hipocracy from politicians may not be new, but it is still news.
But hey, this discourse does exactly what the wingnut defenders of Gannon and Bush want it to do: it takes the focus off of the issue of the administration’s unprecedented manipulation of the media. Even Sully is distracted into thinking the story is a case against Gannon. It isn’t. It is a serious case against the Bush administration and the WH media at large. The WH made idiots out of the entire press corp with this thing, and the boys and girls in the breifing room are sitting around going “Huh?”.
If the tables were turned I really think you’d be making my argument, and I’d like to think that I’d be agreeing with you.
Been enjoying reading your work (as usual) otherwise, bro.
AL Maviva
What’s going on with the Gannon/Guckert thing is pretty straightforward.
The left perceives a club with which to bludgeon the WH.
The left’s premise, is that any mention of “gay” – whether it involves homosexual gay, happy gay, of flowers in a nosegay – drives everybody to the right of Jim Jeffords into foaming seizures.
Since this has failed to happen, the left is coming back with the retort, “he’s gay, Jim. Gay, I tell you. I’m shocked, shocked to find gay here. Gays? We don’t need no steenking gays.”
I don’t think it has anything to do with left homophobia – though I’ve seen enough left homophobia in my time. It has to do with the left’s mistaken premises of (1) uniformity on the right concerning gay issues; and (2) the notion that anti-gay animus is what motivates a monolithic conservative / center-right white house and Republican constituency.
The left is baffled that the WH hasn’t invited Fred Phelps in to exorcise Gannon’s demons from the WH press room, and keeps running the “gay” flag up the pole in the hopes that it will happen, or at least that everybody will start thinking it’s happening.
The sad outcome of taking the Lautenberg/Pelosi demands of greater background investigation into pressers, would be that the WH would eliminate coverage from minor outlets (like bloggers with day passes) and that the background investigations of the MSMers admitted to the press room would leave the WH in possession of dossiers on all admitted reporters. You think any politician should be trusted with that kind of leverage over reporters?
RW
Yeah.
Y’see, every gay person simply HAS to toe the Democratic party line, lest their private life be investigated and the “gay friendly” bloggers (and their lapdog supporters) dance on their character.
The plantation must be nice.
Brian Linse
RW:
When you advertise escort services on the web while simultaneously working as a WH reporter, it is not a question of “private” behavior.
For example: if Gannon were blowing the president in the oval office but had no involvment in publicly advertized, illegal oral sex, then exposing it WOULD be a case of invading Gannon’s (and the prisident’s) “private” behavior. But, of course, you guys on the right don’t care if presidents catch the odd hummer in the the White House… oh shit, wait a minute…
Try this:
While waiting for callbacks, my minds eye drifted back to the Clinton White House. Tim Bannon, a liberal activist, had made his way into a presidential press conference; Bannon had been attending press briefings for nearly two years, under the name Slim Cannon. No one seemed knew much about FallOnNews.com, the Internet news service he worked with, but many suspected it was a front group for the Democrats.
Clinton had been taking a well-publicized beating over the Monica Lewinsky Affair. At the president’s first press conference in quite some time, he called on Cannon, who asked the following question: “Mr. President, given revelations about House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s serial affairs and the abandonment of his wife when she had cancer, and given that Congressman Bob Livingston has a similar record of perfidious peccadilloes, and given stories about the sexual shenanigans of a host of televangelists including Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, could you please comment on whether the right wing media, isn’t selectively focusing on the Lewinsky Affair, and doesn’t want to deal with sexual scandals in its own backyard?”
Less than twenty-four hours later, a host of right wing Web sites — suspicious that Cannon may have been planted by the White House — discovered that Slim Cannon’s cannon was prominently featured on a number of gay porn sites, and that in his off hours he may have been a gay “escort.” Intrepid researchers find out that Cannon had been privy to secret documents before any other duly accredited White House reporters.
“Clinton’s gay consort” became the right’s theme for the next several months.
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=18628
Sav
So, by my count, we’ve got one Republican shill and umpteen Democrat shills in the press room. And that ratio is too low for the left. Glad that’s cleared up.
Though I can see why Brian thinks this ordeal surpasses Clinton’s behavior. After all, Clinton was just fondling, womanizing, lying under oath and covering it up, and he was only the president. On the other hand, washisname asked slanted questions from the right!
I’m not sure how democracy will recover.
Aaron
Don’t forget that Billgot Monica better jobs to shut her up.
Has anyone any proof Gannon was whoring while doing his WH gig?
Myopist
“Has anyone any proof Gannon was whoring while doing his WH gig?”
Hell, does anybody have any proof that Gannon was actually whoring? Yes, yes, I know that he apparently had an escort service running at one point – but is there any sworn testimony alleging that he broke any actual laws, an arrest record for solicitation, anything concrete?
-M
PS: Some might call this attitude of mine ‘quaint naivete’; I call it ‘desirous of being not subject to a libel suit if it turns out that nobody actually has that sort of evidence’.
Al Maviva
So Brian, other than Bob Fertik’s feverish question (“Did Bush have sex with that man?”) is there any other “evidence” that Bush was getting blowjobs from Gannon, in the oval office, while negotiating with Congress or foreign dignitaries over the phone?
BTW, did you hear the latest scandal? I understand one of the WH corps of cooks – there are about 30 of them – was late paying his visa bill last month.
It’s inexcusable and scandalous that this has happened on Bush’s watch. If it had happened under Clinton, the VRWC would be all over it for months and impeach him for it… naked hypocrisy… did I mention GAY GAY GAY blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
When you spend your time advancing the notion the the pimples and blips of public life are major scandals, it does more to make you look like a loony, than make the public figure you assail look corrupt. Just a hint.
smijer
Sully is so funny. I’ve always wanted to blow in his ear to see if dust comes out the other side. I watched and read his blog as he slowly came to the painful understanding that the Party and the President that he worships with all fealty wants nothing more than to treat him as a second class citizen, and to use institutionalized prejudice against people like him to bring out voters in the swing states. Now he can’t seem to understand what the difference between “outing” a gay democrat as an attack on gays and democrats and “outing” a gay prostistute republican who was a willing tool of the people who walk around like God’s almighty gift to humanity because they have a lock on “moral values” and who publicly behave as vicious homophobes in order to pander to the vicious homophobes in the electorate… That’s hilarious.
Kimmitt
You can’t “out” someone who advertises as a same-sex escort on the internet. It’s just not a meaningful statement.
smijer
Well, yeah, Kimmitt.. there is that, too. It still strikes me as odd that people can’t figure out the difference between “gay” used as a smear (as it often is from our right), and “gay” used as a simple descriptive and used to point out that that the people who use “gay” as a smear, denotative of a second-class citizent. It amazes me that they don’t mind using a “gay” prostitute to do their PR work for them, and that they get all righteous about gay rights, trying to paint the other side as homophobes for having the temerity to notice the disconnect between the words and actions they use to pander to the hatred in their party and the words and actions they use to manipulate the press. “Grandpa, what was irony like?”
RW
And I remember when “sexual harassment” was a winning issue for the Democrats, Brian.
Someone’s web site that is registered but they don’t promote under their name is PUBLIC to you but you’re so politically blind that you pretend not to realize that the oval office is PUBLIC PROPERTY and what was happening was on the PUBLIC DIME.
Like I said, that was back when sexual harassment was a winning issue for you guys, back when you were investigating Clarence Thomas’ video rentals in college and saying “pubic hair” in front of an underling was cause for dismissal from PUBLIC employment on the court.
Which is part of the reason why it’s no longer a winning issue for you guys, Brian…..your hypocrisy, duplicity and double-speak only works amongst yourselves and not the public. For all I know, Gannon was the devil incarnate and deserves what he’s getting. But, what he’s gotten from many (not all) leftist activists has been “gay cock prostitute/escort”.
Your boy Kos actually admitted “if that’s what it took”. The cat is out of the bag.
Sheesh, I can’t believe you tried to use Bill f’n Clinton getting blown at his gov’t job as an example of someone’s private life. LOL!
RW
That was actually the executive job pimp for whores, Vernon Jordan, Aaron. He knew his place in the Democratic administration: job pimp, gopher and golf buddy.
RW
BTW, the above was a joke, before anyone decides to go off on a rant. Relax…smile. It’s political humor (with no small amount of truth).
Gary Farber
I’m very confused; you’ve made clear innumerable times that, in your view, Sullivan is a contempible fool. So what’s the point of citing such a wrong-headed, person you’ve declared far more times than I can count has worthless opinions? Are you trying to say only an idiot like Sullivan could defend Gannon? Or what?
I mean, you can’t possible cite someone you regard as a fool with worthless opinions to support something, can you?