Anyone watch the Shield?
Archives for February 2005
Sully Finally Weighs In
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.
Useless Hyperbole
I found this at ‘Informed Comment’:
AP reports that the one-day total for war-related violence in Iraq, including the police station bombing in Tikrit reported here yesterday morning, came to 30. That is about 11,000 persons a year if the rate were constant and extrapolated out. In fact, the wire services manage to report only a fraction of daily deaths from war-related violence. And, of course there is a sense in which a lot of the murders are an indirect result of the poor security produced by the guerrilla war.
I was sick three days last week. That means I will be sick 150+ days this year if the rate remains constant and is extrapolated out.
Close to 3,000 people were killed on September 11th. That is over a million people a year if the rate remains constant and extrapolated out.
The Lofty Feel of Arrogance
Instapundit links to this wretched mess of turgid prose written by Michael Gorman, the President of the American Library Association, and labels it tiresome elitist schtick. Really, though- you have to read some of it to truly appreciate how tiresome it really is:
A blog is a species of interactive electronic diary by means of which the unpublishable, untrammeled by editors or the rules of grammar, can communicate their thoughts via the web. (Though it sounds like something you would find stuck in a drain, the ugly neologism blog is a contraction of “web log.”) Until recently, I had not spent much time thinking about blogs or Blog People.
Groan.
It is obvious that the Blog People read what they want to read rather than what is in front of them and judge me to be wrong on the basis of what they think rather than what I actually wrote. Given the quality of the writing in the blogs I have seen, I doubt that many of the Blog People are in the habit of sustained reading of complex texts. It is entirely possible that their intellectual needs are met by an accumulation of random facts and paragraphs. In that case, their rejection of my view is quite understandable.
You can smell the Sherry co-mingling with stench of condescenion. You can hear the acquired Boston Brahmin accent and feel the sneering disdain. Forgive us, oh knighted master of all things knowledge, but we have seen your type before:
Higgins and company went out of style in 1988, and my tolerance for elitist prigs and intellectual fops like Mr. Gorman expired along with them.
Big Hairy Cockgate
Thank goodness for Jeff Goldstein, who is keeping us on top of Jeff Gannon’s Cock (nope- not going to apologize). While Jeff’s coverage has ben good, I don’t know how I missed this:
BREAKING NEWS: Gannon reportedly knew about Iraq attack four hours before it happened by John in DC – 2/18/2005 09:57:00 AM
A news producer for a major network’s local affiliate just told me that Gannon told the producer the US was going to attack Iraq four hours before President Bush announced it to the nation.
According to the producer, Gannon specifically told them that in four hours the president was going to be making a speech to the nation announcing that the US was bombing Iraq. The producer told me they were surprised that Gannon, working with such a small news outfit, could have access to such information, but “what did you know, he was right,” the producer said today. The producer went on to say that Gannon often had correct scoops on major stories, including information about Mary Mapes and the Dan Rather BUSH/AWOL scandal that this news outlet got from Gannon before any had the information publicly.
I am trying to think of a way to include the phrase “Jeff Gannon’s Gay Hooker Cock” and ‘shocke and awe’ in a coherent sentence, and I am coming up with nothing.
I am pleased, however, to report that Sen. ‘Harry’ Reid and Sen. ‘Dick’ Durbin want to investigate Jeff Gannon’s cock. Jeff Gannon, for his part, is back, and promising not to back down:
Criticism of my work and my journalistic background is fair game, but the intensive scrutiny into my personal life, especially things from the past have startled many in the journalistic community. Now Democrats in Congress are demanding that the White House do more thorough investigation into the personal lives and sexual histories of reporters. Is this what they want, to give the Bush administration a mandate to make this kind of information relevant to the vetting process for journalists? What kind of reaction would there have been if the White House has announced such a plan two months ago?
If I had been a liberal reporter with the salacious past now attributed to me, I would be the Grand Marshall of the next Gay Pride Parade as well as a media darling, able to give softball interviews. But because I am a conservative, they continue to try to smear me with allegations of behavior that they otherwise would vigorously defend.
This episode is so rich with irony that it will take me many columns and a book to deal with it all. What is most telling about the Left is how quickly it was able to abandon its sacred principles of free speech and privacy to attack someone it disagreed with. The justification for this was based on erroneous characterizations of my reporting.
In other Gannon news, David Corn, whom I wrote about here and whose complete heresy is chronicled here, is being taken to task by his commenters. As the Myopist notred, it might be time to start a David Corn Watch, for his days may be numbered before he is sent off to the Lieberman dungeon:
Anyone feel like starting a pool on just when the heretic gets burned? Because he will, you know. He can fulminate about Social Security privatization and Negropointe all he likes, but the guy’s transgressed against one too many Angry Left shibboleths-of-the-moment, and the blackshirts already hate him for his analysis of their hijacking (and subsequent marginalization) of the antiwar movement. The knives are being sharpened as we speak.
Because They Care…
The Center for American Progress is but one of the left-liberal sites that is tapdancing along the border between insane and paranoid (see Media Matters, MoveOn.Org, etc.) yet still tries to pretend that it is a non-partisan organization:
The Center for American Progress is a nonpartisan research and educational institute dedicated to promoting a strong, just and free America that ensures opportunity for all.
A paragraph later we note that one of the goals for the Center for American Progress is “responding effectively and rapidly to conservative proposals and rhetoric with a thoughtful critique and clear alternatives.” So much for the nonpartisan bit.
So what sort of lofty goals and high-minded deeds are our intrepid progressives undertaking these days? Well, of course- looking out for the little man:
[Ed. Note: To clear up any confusion, this is not a parody. These are actual profiles clipped from Hannity
Who Woulda Thunk It?
Imagine that- David Corn, author of The Lies of George W. Bush, has turned into a right-wing apparatchik and apologist for the Bushhitler administration:
If Gannon/Guckert did receive preferential treatment–because of his ideological bent or any other reason–that would be wrong and a matter for the White House to explain. But let’s move on to his personal (or other professional) life. Bloggers have made much of his apparent effort to earn a buck as a prostitute for men. This is not gay-baiting, they say, it’s hypocrisy. The question is, hypocrisy on whose part? On Gannon/Guckert’s? He’s been accused of being a gay-baiter. But how true is that? As part of my investigation, I had my assistant, Alexa Steinberg, search through a collection of Gannon/Guckert’s articles for pieces on gay-related themes. She found eight pieces. Most were straightforward accounts of political tussles over gay marriage.
Paging Gertrude Stein. Paging Gertrude Stein.