(if so, I think you're overdosing)
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.
Actually, this is an interesting ploy by the left. The get us to start defending a gay man, or at least a man who until recently engaged in gay activities. Now the liberals have a large group of conservatives circling the wagons around a man who represented something that is totally outside the scope of conservatism. It's the slippery slope thing. Next thing you know, we'll have our own Barney Frank.
Did you ever hear me defend this guy?
In fact, I never commented on him at all, just on the liberal attack on someone he way they do.
Also, is the homo thing true? For all I have heard, these are just accusations, and I also heard he is now a Born Again Christian and has changed his life dramatically.
I have no idea who he is or what is right.
So, Dont pull this rule of law false argument, please, neither me or you KNOW about this man, we only know what Dan Rather's friends say about him.
In general, I would agree with you. But not all of the Tripp tapes were ethics generated. Many were chick chat in nature and not specific to the ethical concerns. While Linda is a hero, it still doesn't make her a saint.
I just saw Jeff Gannon on the Today Show (I was only checking to see if our local Rodeo Parade was airing on tv yet and there he was).
He was being interviewed by Campbell Brown.
He said there is some truth to the stories out there but also a lot that is not true.
They also hit on the usual aspects: real name, how he was vetted for a day pass, partisan website, now dems want investigation, yada yada yada.
Good one Ann!!
No, I don't think anyone has said Tripp is a saint.
Spot on.
Now that you mention it, I do remember. It wasn't something that really tickled my fancy though.
I got a good laugh out of it. I couldn't believe they let him go out in public in that hat.....
Someone reported that one of the servers he used said he had updated one of the sites he used as recently as 2 months ago. So his conversion must have been within the last 2 months. And sadly, born again anymore means virtually nothing, what with cheap grace being the strategy of the day.
Sure this is an attack by the left on someone who appears to be on the right. But the left is attacking based on philosophy. We should be defending on good vs evil, right vs wrong.
This guy seemed to live in a glass house. And it's not just Dan Rather's friends framing the issue. There have been so very friendly to FR people doing the same based on the moral aspect of this.
Based on the above, which category do you put Mr. Gannon/Guckert in?
In addition, I'm not suggesting throw this guy to the wolves, I'm saying we should quietly let this guy either continue his journalist career (which I understand he chose to end. If Talon chose to end it for him, are they part of the Rather brigade?) or let him ride into the sunset.
For arguments sake:
To: ladyinred
I love Linda Tripp. She's the Saint of Truth!
I'm sending her flowers for Valentine's Day, in care of her attorneys:
Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, PC
Attorneys at Law
3233 P Street, NW
Washington DC 20007-2756
1-202-342-6980, fax -6984.
I have also written to President Bush urging that she be hired by his Administration. White House zip code is 20500.
54 Posted on 02/10/2001 17:46:17 PST by badboynofear
I stand corrected.
:)
(if so, I think you're overdosing)
*****************
Coulter nails another one.
If Liberals are so Pro-gay .. Then why are liberals the ones stalking gays in an attempt to destroy their lives??
Actually, this is an interesting ploy by the left. The get us to start defending a gay man, or at least a man who until recently engaged in gay activities
I don't agree with the gay life style .. but that also doesn't mean that I will stalk and destroy them and send threatening calls and letters to his mother .. like the loon left has done
Clarify this for me.
Gannon has alluded to being a born-again Christian and has repented of his past.
I have also seen in print where he was supposedly doing this escort thing up until 2 months ago.
Do you know if this is true?
I defend him because he is a Christian, he is one of us, and he is genuine (I've met him and from what I can tell, he is the real deal).
If he has been doing the escort thing recently, he needs to come clean and repent of that and leave it behind. Any criticism of his actions should come from his clergy leadership and it should be done with an eye on accountability to other Christians (as an internal church matter).
We at FR should continue to defend him. I will continue to do so because there but for the grace of God go I. 'Pod.
*************
You got that right.
Please prove that. I think there is a "what happened when" issue here.
Barbra Streisand.
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