Posted on 02/18/2005 4:13:55 PM PST by KidGlock
Rove- Gannon Connection?
WASHINGTON, Feb. 18, 2005
Karl Rove's hope to become a respected policymaker will be hampered if the dirty tricks from his political past are more apparent than his desire to spread liberty around the globe.
Karl Rove took a victory lap at an SRO lunch at the Conservative Political Action Committee meeting at the Ronald Reagan building in Washington on Thursday. After a glowing introduction by Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association, Rove proclaimed "conservatism as the dominant political creed in America," but warned Republicans not to get complacent or grow "tired and timid." He recalled the dark days when the Democrats were dominant and cautioned that that could happen again if they let down their guard. The new White House deputy chief of staff also called on conservatives to "seize the mantle of idealism."
Tired and timid are two adjectives never applied to Rove. The architect of the Bush victories in 2000 and 2004 came through the ranks of college Republicans with the late Lee Atwater, and their admitted and alleged dirty tricks are the legends many young political operatives dream of pulling off. So when Jeff Gannon, White House "reporter" for Talon "News," was unmasked last week, the leap to a possible Rove connection was unavoidable. Gannon says that he met Rove only once, at a White House Christmas party, and Gannon is kind of small potatoes for Rove at this point in his career.
But Rove's dominance of White House and Republican politics, Gannon's aggressively partisan work and the ease with which he got day passes for the White House press room the past two years make it hard to believe that he wasn't at least implicitly sanctioned by the "boy genius." Rove, who rarely gave on-the-record interviews to the MSM (mainstream media), had time to talk to GOPUSA, which owns Talon.
GOPUSA and Talon are both owned by Bobby Eberle, a Texas Republican and business associate of conservative direct-mail guru Bruce Eberle who says that Bobby is from the "Texas branch of the Eberle clan." Bobby Eberle told The New York Times that he created Talon to build a news service with a conservative slant and "if someone were to see 'GOPUSA,' there's an instant built-in bias there." No kidding.
Some of the real reporters in the White House pressroom were apparently annoyed at Gannon's presence and his softball, partisan questions, but considered him only a minor irritant. One told me he thought of Gannon as a balance for the opinionated liberal questions of Hearst's Helen Thomas. But what Gannon was up to was not just writing opinion columns or using a different technique to get information. He was a player in Republican campaigns and his work in the South Dakota Senate race illustrates the role he played. It is also a classic example of how political operatives are using the brave new world of the Internet and the blogosphere. Gannon and Talon News appear to be mini-Drudge reports; a "news" source which partisans use to put out negative information, get the attention of the bloggers, talk radio and then the MSM in a way that mere press releases are unable to achieve.
One of Gannon's first projects was an attempt to discredit the South Dakota Argus Leader, South Dakota's major paper, and its longtime political writer, David Kranz. According to the National Journal, which reported on this last November, Gannon wrote a series of articles in the summer of 2003 alleging that Kranz, who went to college with Democratic Sen. Tom Daschle, was not only sympathetic to him but was an actual part of the Daschle campaign. These articles then got a huge amount of play on the blogs of John Lauck and Jason Van Beek, and were picked up by other conservative sites and talk radio. The paper was bombarded with messages about its bias and acknowledges that these had an impact on its coverage.
Daschle opponent John Thune's campaign manager was Dick Wadham, an old political crony of Karl Rove's; the kind of pal Rove could ask to hire his first cousin, John Wood, a few years back. Wadham put the bloggers on the campaign payroll and the symbiotic relationship between the campaign, the bloggers and "reporter" Gannon” continued. On September 29, Gannon broke the story that Daschle had claimed a special tax exemption for a house in Washington and the bloggers jumped all over it. According to a November 17 posting on South Dakota Politics – a site that Van Beek, who has become a staffer for now-Sen. Thune, has bequeathed to Lauck – "Jeff Gannon, whose reportage had a dramatic impact on the Daschle v. Thune race (his story about Sen. Daschle signing a legal document claiming to be a D.C. resident was published nearly the same day Thune began to run an ad showing Daschle saying, "I'm a D.C. resident) has written an analysis of the debacle."
Daschle aides told Roll Call, "This guy (Gannon) became the dumping ground for opposition research." The connections are so strong that there is an FEC challenge which could be a test case on the limits of the use of the Internet in federal campaigns.
Gannon also had Thune on his radio show "Jeff Gannon's Washington," and the White House correspondent for Talon became touted as the "resident D.C. expert on South Dakota politics" by the bloggers. Thune and Wadham (who has been hired by aspiring White House Republican Sen. George Allen) have become go-to guys on the use of blogs in campaigns. Thune was cited in The New York Times as introducing "Senators to the meaning of 'blogging,' explaining the basics of self-published online political commentary and arguing that it can affect public opinion."
This week Democrats, who have serious case of Rove envy, went a little nuts and started sending around information and graphic pictures of Gannon and his porn Web sites. But it is the more routine part of Gannon's life that deserves serious scrutiny. Planting or even just sanctioning a political operative in the WH press room is a dangerous precedent and Karl Rove's hope to become a respected policymaker will be hampered if the dirty tricks from his political past are more apparent than his desire to spread liberty around the globe.
I have seen, tonight, where Olbermann is falsely reporting on the issue....hoping to make something bigger out of it...than really is.
I have been looking at Olbermann transcripts tonight.
Online at msnbc.com
Looks like Olbermann is fabricating a lot of stuff.
NOTE- He has yet to show where the articles that Gannon guy wrote were fake. They are posted on MensNewsDaily.com.
And I cross checked some stuff he wrote with reports filed by folks at MSNBC.com...and CNN...and White House press releases. What Gannon wrote......was real. The White House Statements, and statements of others, are actually what was said or released.
Olbermann, Dana Milbanks, and the guy from Editor& Publisher keep calling Gannons reports fake...and keep refering Talon News a "fake web site"...or "phone web site"
I went to Talon News.....and guess what....there is a web site called Talon News. It does have news reports filed on the site.
It seems Gannon, when first reporting, worked for that GOP USA site....in a section they had set up for news.
Well guess what....GOP USA is a real site as well.
I went and looked on there. Its a real web site...it exists. The GOPUSA news section is now what is called Talon News.
Everytime Olbermann brings the issue up....he tries to imply that there is a question as to who gives out daily press passes.
He tries to find some way to give the impression that the white house press sec. does it.
I have found many different times in his transcripts where the guest he is interviewing....
Usually the some guy named Mitchell from Editor and Publisher magazine....has told that the Press Sec. has nothing to do with it....and it is handled at a much lower level.
WHY DOES OLBERMANN KEEP BRINGING THAT UP...IF HIS OWN SHOW HAS HAD SOMEONE ON WHO SAYS IT IS HANDLED AT A LOWER LEVEL.
Furthermore....I have seen several cases where Olbermann has flat out lied about the story. Sees like he is making stuff up as he goes along.
From what I have seen...Editor and Publisher guy is a major liberal and that would explain why that reporter, Gannon, won't talk to him. Because E&P may be falsely reporting stuff.
I tried doing some reseach on him earlier .. but I got side tracked
Thanks for the info ..
The battle plan is based on a concept developed at the National Defense University. It's called "Shock and Awe" and it focuses on the psychological destruction of the enemy's will to fight rather than the physical destruction of his military forces.
I think your link brings us back to this thread.
It is interesting the E&P claims that is what he told them...
For some reason, I doubt they are willing to produce a tape of their call with Gannon.
We have seen several times in the past couple of weeks where E&P has written something on their web site...and by the time their guy goes on Olbermann's show....they are saying something different.
I have a strong suspect of mind that Gannon told E&P he was not going to talk to them explicitly.
And they reported it as..."he said he won't talk to the media".
Proof of this would be from E&P itself. The link from the Dkos post goes to a E&P page. It states in the write up how Gannon told them that he will go to the right outlet to tell his side.
If Gannon told them that he would not talk, as they claim. Then how is it he would tell them that he was gonna go to the right outlet to get his side out there???
Seems E&P is upset that Gannon won't speak with them...but will speak with others. Same with Olbermann. Gannon has been on CNN and other places....and Olbermann is so upset that every other group is getting interviews with Gannon...that he has now decided to go off the deep end and misreport what the story is.
YOU are correct!
Shock and Awe is the term that came out in a book and policy set that was written years ago.
Several Generals and mil policy makers took part in the sort of conference from which the idea came from.
As a matter of fact...it was not the Pentagon that first said Shock and Awe. It was reporters....who knew about the book.
Didn't you hear, Buckhead?
Next week Olbermann is gonna claim that you are Deep Throat.
ping
From the Thornburgh Report:
Dotty Lynch, CBS News’ Senior Political Editor....recalled having discussions with Mapes over Labor Day weekend, about the September 8 Segment. Who is Dotty Lynch? She is CBS News’ “Senior Political Editor” and a self-described “very ardent feminist” and longtime partisan liberal political operative. Before joining CBS, Lynch directed polling for George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy, Gary Hart, Walter Mondale and the DNC.
Watch Eric Burns on "Fox News Watch" on Saturday. He is going to name "Deep-throat" who is a female, he says.
Fox News Watch, airs on FOX News Channel Saturdays at 6:30 p.m. ET and re-airs Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. ET, Sundays at 2:30 a.m. ET and 6:30 a.m. ET and finally on Monday mornings at 2:30 a.m. ET.
Thanks for the info and links. I knocked off FR and watched CPAC w/the Swiftboat Vets.......absolutely awesome speeches. Catch it on the rerun if you did not see it.
Dotti's been lost in her life for quite a while it appears.
I agree. Some made sense (although I don't think the Clintons had Foster bumped off, someone else did)
But some of those theories didn't make sense. And we got singed on a few, such as Danny Williams. But looking back, there was a cottage conspiracy industry peddling those - remember Drudge promoting Danny Williams as an earth-shattering story, with Newsmax piling on? All because they thought that they could link Danny's DNA to Clinton's DNA published in the Starr Report. Whoops, they couldn't.
But after a couple of years of that, we started to sober up and look at the internet as an investigative, organizational and journalistic medium - and started assuming some old-school journalistic ethics that, ironically, had all-but been abandonded by the MSM. The quality of our fact-checking, writing and analysis improved. So did our speed and our understanding of the strengths and limitations of the medium. To where we run circles around the MSM today. They still gather much of the news. But they can't spin it any longer, or omit key facts, or engage in out-and-out fallacies like this piece. And it's driving them bonkers.
And the left-wing bloggers and forums are eight years behind up. EIGHT YEARS. That's an eternity. And not only that, they are not trying to come up with their own model for success, they are emulating what we did with Clinton. They are calling Bush a liar every chance they get, whether or not the facts fit the charge, because, hey, that's a label that eventually stuck on Clinton. And they want their impeachment and want it bad - to the point where an idiot reporter for the Philly Daily News is maintaining a countdown to Bush's impeachment on his blog - timed when Nixon would have been impeached had he stayed in office.
It's so typically liberal. Out of step with the times. Imitating, not innovating. And attempting to furiously pound square pegs into round holes, all the while blaming Karl Rove for the fact that the pegs no longer are round, instead of finding the proper square hole for the peg.
Sorry about that! Try this one:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1341610/posts
Nothing new here....You're right! Same old drivel, lies and allegations.
One sentence really bothers me:
The New York Times as introducing "Senators to the meaning of 'blogging,' explaining the basics of self-published online political commentary and arguing that it can affect public opinion."
So what the next step? "Senator, you must control blogging because it can affect public opinion and we at the NYTABCNBCCBS are losing control over the people's minds."
Here's GOPUSA.com's Alexa traffic chart:
Here is it compared to Free Republic and CBS:
Talon News is even worse. It drops from a ranking of around 47,000th that GOPUSA has to around 182,000th.
Here's their traffic with comparisons to Free Republic and CBS:
The links between the DNC and many mainstream news outlets, newscasters, anchors, journalists, and websites is far more blatant yet there's no huge scandal there. And those linked are FAR more influential than little old Gannon/Guckert. Which makes this whole faux scandal all the more obvious for what it is.
I doubt DU could understand a flow chart.
There's A Fourth Estate And A Fifth Estate (Comments From The WH Press Corp About Gannon)
Terry Moran says a decent thing!
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