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.
Cut the lectures Joe, your faux concern with conservative "troubles" is laughable.
As is your claim of "us" and "our side".
Oh the story is long, complex and has many players including Tripp, Lewinsky, Goldburg and others. The reason for the tapes, why the dress was preserved and the belief that Tripp made the tapes to protect both of them from dirt naps. Pretty good Readers' Digest version?
Do you have proof it was only liberals who stalked him and his mother?
Are you saying Brock stalked and threatened him? Are you saying Oberman stalked and threatened him, or Milbank or =Kurtz?
You speak truth, brother. 'Pod
I can accept that. So far, his appearances have only been references to "the past". What's "the past".
Ok, I'll play your game.....your side. BTW, nice name. Is it a reference to the colors or the biblical reference.
Why? Because the evil Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, Rumsfeld, Blair, ect, all lied about WMD, and went to war to revenge "daddy".
That's all you need to know about old Joe.
Nice try Joe
If you don't know how they play .. then you are a fool
Keep right on defending the left, Joe
Proof please. "Someone reported" doesn't cut it.
You won't be getting it from him.....
Gannon: I cannot go into those specifics. I can tell you that there is a lot of misinformation out there. There's a lot of fabrication out there, and a lot of misinformation. Brown: Why can't you then clear it up right now? The cameras are rolling. Gannon: As I've said, I've been advised not to get into the specifics out there. Is there some truth out there? Yes. Is there a lot of falsehood out there? Absolutely.
Well, Jeff my man.....air it out.
Well educate me.
LOL, yes, your "game" is transparent.
Can't prove it. Only saw what I read on this forum. But then again I couldn't prove he was involved in porn websites. From Jeff himself, I can't tell what's truthful and not cause he ain't talkin.
Oh please .. do yourself a favor and stop playing dumb
I asked for an education. Now's your chance. You thought I was a fool. So educate me so I am a fool no more. Connect the dots for me.
I agree that he should air it out.
I think Jeff is in deep legal trouble now that the @$$hole Conyers and the GAO are involved.
Dealing with the GAO is like being left to the tender mercies of the IRS.
Are you sure that was Kerry?
The WashPost reported (click here for the article):
Dean, who during his presidential campaign once declared, "If Bill Clinton can be the first 'black president,' I can be our first 'gay president.' "
Maybe Gannon wrote a story about Dean saying that and you are misremembering? Or maybe Gannon was inspired to write a story suggesting Kerry as the "first gay president" based on his recollection of the Dean remark (possible, but seems unlikely to me)?
I guess I can't see how airing it out would hurt him unless it implicates others. Or, he is going to seek a suit against those who outed him. Probably he will go against the server owners who may have passed on info about him. He's got to be careful however, because discovery in such situations is not always what's anticiapted. It's tough to control fishing expeditions.
I have wondered if such was not part of the strategy. I won't run from that.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.