Posted on 02/23/2005 4:52:17 PM PST by perfect stranger
Posted: February 23, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2005 Universal Press Syndicate
In response to the public disgrace and ruin of New York Times editor Howell Raines, CBS anchor Dan Rather and CNN news director Eason Jordan, liberals are directing their fury at the blogs. Once derided as people sitting around their living rooms in pajamas, now obscure writers for unknown websites are coming under more intensive background checks than CIA agents.
The heretofore-unknown Jeff Gannon of the heretofore-unknown "Talon News" service was caught red-handed asking friendly questions at a White House press briefing. Now the media is hot on the trail of a gay escort service that Gannon may have run some years ago. Are we supposed to like gay people now, or hate them? Is there a website where I can go to and find out how the Democrats want me to feel about gay people on a moment-to-moment basis?
Liberals keep rolling out a scrolling series of attacks on Gannon for their Two Minutes Hate, but all their other charges against him fall apart after three seconds of scrutiny. Gannon's only offense is that he may be gay.
First, liberals claimed Gannon was a White House plant who received a press pass so that he could ask softball questions – a perk reserved for New York Times reporters during the Clinton years. Their proof was that while "real" journalists (like Jayson Blair) were being denied press passes, Gannon had one, even though he writes for a website that no one has ever heard of – but still big enough to be a target of liberal hatred! (By the way, if writing for a news organization with no viewers is grounds for being denied a press pass, why do MSNBC reporters have them?)
On the op-ed page of the New York Times, Maureen Dowd openly lied about the press pass, saying: "I was rejected for a White House press pass at the start of the Bush administration, but someone with an alias, a tax evasion problem and Internet pictures where he posed like the 'Barberini Faun' is credentialed?"
Press passes can't be that hard to come by if the White House allows that dyspeptic, old Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president. Still, it would be suspicious if Dowd were denied a press pass while someone from "Talon News" got one, even if he is a better reporter.
But Dowd was talking about two different passes without telling her readers (a process now known in journalism schools as "Dowdification"). Gannon didn't have a permanent pass; he had only a daily pass. Almost anyone can get a daily pass – even famed Times fantasist Maureen Dowd could have gotten one of those. A daily pass and a permanent pass are altogether different animals. The entire linchpin of Dowd's column was a lie. (And I'm sure the Times' public editor will get right on Dowd's deception.)
Finally, liberals expressed shock and dismay that Gannon's real name is "James Guckert." On MSNBC's "Hardball," Chris Matthews introduced the Gannon scandal this way: "Coming up, how did a fake news reporter from a right-wing website get inside the White House press briefings and presidential news conferences?"
Reporter David Shuster then gave a report on "the phony alias Guckert used to play journalist" – as opposed to the real name Shuster uses to play journalist. (You can tell Schuster is a crackerjack journalist because he uses phrases like "phony alias.") With all the subtlety of a gay-bashing skinhead, Matthews spent the rest of the segment seeing how many times he could smear Gannon by mentioning "HotMilitaryStuds.com" and laughing.
Any day now, Matthews will devote entire shows to exposing Larry Zeigler, Gerald Riviera and Michael Weiner – aka Larry King, Geraldo Rivera and Matthews' former MSNBC colleague Michael Savage. As a newspaper reporter, Wolf Blitzer has written under the names Ze'ev Blitzer and Ze'ev Barak. The greatest essayist of modern times was Eric Blair, aka George Orwell. The worst essayist of modern times is "TRB" of The New Republic.
Air America radio host and "Nanny" impersonator "Randi Rhodes" goes by a fake name, and she won't even tell people what her real last name is. (She says for "privacy reasons." That name must be a real doozy.) As Insideradio.com describes Rhodes, she refuses "to withhold anything from her listeners" and says conservatives "are less likely to share such things." How about sharing your name, Randi? We promise not to laugh.
Democrats in Congress actually demanded that an independent prosecutor investigate how Gannon got into White House press conferences while writing under an invented name. How did Gary Hartpence, Billy Blythe and John Kohn (Gary Hart, Bill Clinton and John Kerry) run for president under invented names? Admittedly, these men were not reporters for the prestigious "Talon News" service; they were merely Democrats running for president.
Liberals keep telling us the media isn't liberal, but in order to retaliate for the decimation of major news organizations like the New York Times, CBS News and CNN, all they can do is produce the scalp of an obscure writer for an unknown conservative Web page. And unlike Raines, Rather and Jordan, they can't even get Gannon for incompetence on the job. (Also unlike Raines, Rather and Jordan, Gannon has appeared on television and given a series of creditable interviews in his own defense, proving our gays are more macho than their straights.)
Gannon didn't write about gays. No "hypocrisy" is being exposed. Liberals' hateful, frothing-at-the-mouth campaign against Gannon consists solely of their claim that he is gay.
Gannon's being persecuted because he's homosexual. As long as he doesn't demand that I do a tapdance of gushing approval of homosexuality, I'll manage just fine to enjoy the things he writes. I used to like David Brock's stuff. We all knew DB was homosexual, but back then we were allowed not to think about it.
Come back, little Jeff...
She's a helluva looker for a drag queen!
What's with that long list of FReepers on your "about me" page...?
I have a little brain and have no idea what your post means. Could you explain it to me?
"...proving our gays are more macho than their straights."
LOL!!! That's gonna leave a mark.
And Ann is more macho than any liberal man, no doubt.
Beg pardon......if you care to look it up, that was name of the policy that your hero Slick Willy made up. Look it up. that's a fact.......Who needs facts when you;re a DUmmie troll......
Sounds like someone let a troll out.
Here, kitty........heeeeeere kitty, kitty.
When will they ever learn how ugly and foolish they sound?
A painful compromise.
It should have been "get out, tell anyone you please".
Askel has the distinction of being one of the founding trollers!
LOL!
Seriously though, I am glad to see Ann's defense of Gannon. This guy doesn't deserve what the Liberals have done to him because he asked a question that didn't seek to behead Bush! More should be done to defend Gannon than has been done from our side.
Wow. That's a miserable post - - hemorrhoids acting up again?
Another masterpiece from the greatest political columnist of our time (tied with George Neumayr). Ann Coulter is still as beautiful as ever, and her wit just keeps getting sharper.
Bumped and bookmarked.
I was going to say, if that's a troll (Since Apr 15, 1998) that's one dedicated troll.
I guess he/she just doesn't like Ann. To each their own...it's a big tent.
"With all the subtlety of a gay-bashing skinhead, Matthews spent the rest of the segment seeing how many times he could smear Gannon by mentioning "HotMilitaryStuds.com" and laughing. "
Talk about hypocrisy: here they are, folks, the people who bashed anyone and everyone who took issue with allowing homosexuals in the military, but at the mere thought of a homosexual soldier, they can't contain their condescending giggles.
Imagine if someone from the right, in defense of excluding homosexuals from the military, kept bringing up such web sites and, as Chrissy did, laughing? You would hear no end of it. The lavender lobby would be out in full force. The MSM would be apopolectic.
But it's okay for Matthews to make fun of gay stuff, particularly when it involves the military. He thinks it's hilarious, but he's still all for forcing the military to let gays serve.
Pathetic.
Long time no see.
Where ya been toots?
Ann at her usual best. You just KNOW that lots of these "real journalists" have all kinds of crap in their closets as well. What I am wondering is if they realize what will happen if this kind of crap continues.
My lovely Ann skewers them again. Any day now they will be hounding Jerry Rivers and asking him why he uses a different name. Any day now.
I have no idea what you are talking about. Could you please explain?
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