And I nominate Barney Frank to personally investigate the personal life and sexual history of:
Posted on 02/26/2005 9:43:35 AM PST by TheOtherOne
Fear and Loathing in the Press Room
For the last two years, the Old Media figures at the White House thought of me as a gadfly, a right-winger with an agenda, harmless, someone to be ignored.
From time to time there were grumbles among some of the reporters and one or two confrontations, but there was never a serious attempt to remove me from their midst. During my tenure I developed some good friends there who welcomed the refreshing perspective I brought to the briefings and respected my courage for asking the questions that I did.
It wasn’t until I asked “The Question” that everything abruptly changed. Initially, my colleagues had no reaction to the query posed to President Bush. It wasn’t until Rush Limbaugh drew attention to it that there was any interest at all. But that was enough to get a liberal group dedicated to attacking conservatives in the media to mobilize. It was horrified that the relentless string of hostile and a few downright disrespectful questions had been broken. My greater sin in their eyes, however was that I dared to suggest that two Senate Democratic leaders held an illogical view of the economy’s weakness and the strength of Social Security.
Immediately the questions about how I got into the briefing room began to be asked. After all, I had “no journalistic credentials” despite the fact that I had written over 500 articles for Talon News over a two-year period. I must be a plant, because there simply cannot be a conservative journalist walking on the hallowed domain of the Fourth Estate built over an old swimming pool.
I feel badly for my colleagues who became the target of these same people on the Left who harshly chastised them for allowing a traitor operate among them. How could they stand idly by while Jeff Gannon breached the ideological barrier that kept conservatives out of the White House briefing room?
The well-funded liberal attack machine, Media Matters, filled with operatives from the DNC and failed Democratic campaigns incited activist bloggers to wage a full-scale jihad against me. All sorts of personal information about me, including my Social Security number was published on the internet. Threats against me as well as my family led to my voluntary resignation in the belief that would bring it to an end, but the bloggers were aiming for my total destruction.
They dug deep for dirt, dredging up things long past and erecting a fantasy world worthy of a Vince Flynn novel. What they found is domain names and sexy pictures from which sprung rumors and conspiracy theories. Based on some of the emails I’ve received, many of these people were conflicted with hatred for my politics and tingling they experienced while viewing pictures said to be me.
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.
This is not to say that I have not made mistakes in the past. Like all of us have at one time or another, I made poor choices and exercised bad judgment. But I believe in a forgiving God who changed my life. It was through that renewal that I went on to have a career as a reporter and further blessed to become a White House correspondent.
The Left always celebrates second chances, except when it comes to conservatives. The only exception to that rule is when a conservative goes over to the dark side, like David Brock did. I have received many emails exhorting me to betray my “handlers” and expose their plans, citing him as the example to follow.
At the heart of all this is the further erosion of the Old Media. The Left is engaging in “21st Century McCarthyism” in an effort to blacklist conservative journalists in order protect their domination of the media. These people may have exposed some of my human failings but they have also revealed their own hypocrisy. The damage to me is done, and it wasn’t fatal. But we are only beginning to see the effect of Gannongate on the Old Media and the Left.
Copyright © 2005 Jeff Gannon.com -- All rights reserved.
He's right... They would love him. Just cuz he's conservative doesn't mean we have to make him our Grand Marchall either.
Jeff, at this point you can come out and advocate a full cavity search of every press person at every press conference, for, um... "security" reasons. Wouldn't want someone sneaking in with a conservative stuffed up one of their orifices, would you?
Kinda weird to see the word "conservative" morph from describing a general set of beliefs, to becoming an all-purpose catch-all term for anyone who's not a far-left media-brainwashed zombie. "The Question" IMO involved no ideology, just a statement of the facts prepended to one of the more interesting questions asked that day.
err Grand Marshall.... ;~D
His site, complete with new articles, and a request for donations is back up.
JeffGannon.com
He has a valid point. But it's a given that liberals are hypocritical on these issues. "It's just about sex" is a defense for their side, but it's brandished as a weapon against any conservative who might have an affair or be gay.
Bravo! I don't know what he did or didn't do in his private life, but I know we had a President who inserted a cigar in a very young intern, and the media averted its eyes. I would love to see the personal expose' on the reporters still in that White House Press Room, and I bet they wouldn't.
The left (democrats and other unstable humans) will kill the truth with any dagger.
Truth must never see the light of day, for if they see it, they will walk away.
Maybe you need to buy one of those certificates from the Pretentious Institute of Journalism.
I think Ward Churchill may be selling them -- along with some of his etchings.
Cheers!
Yes, I know a lot is done on this already. But I tuned into a Daschle press conference once and I'm not sure if what transpired was sex, insanity or mass hysteria. The reporters' "questions" were long dissertations weaving intricate anti-republican conspiracy theories and the "question" at the end was akin to "So Senator God, do you think that based on all the (crazy nonsense) I just told you about, this might be a way you can go after those evil republicans?"
Owl_Eagle
"You know, I'm going to start thanking
the woman who cleans the restroom in
the building I work in. I'm going to start
thinking of her as a human being"-Hillary Clinton
(Yes, she really said that
Peggy Noonan
The Case Against Hillary Clinton, pg 55)
Glad to see he's back and giving the left a dose of honesty.
And I nominate Barney Frank to personally investigate the personal life and sexual history of:
The hypocracy of the left is breathtaking. For 8 years we heard that we had no right to look into Clinton's private life (even though his private life had NOTHING to do with it) and then they promptle turn over every rock seeking dirt on people that go back 30 years. To say their actions are disgusting puts too small a word on it.
My experience with liberals/leftists is that they'll say anything they think they can get away with.
They're not like the rest of us -- they're much more intelligent and were born to be con-artists.
So they have this immeasurable delusion of getting over on the rest of us -- when they are so pathetically obvious, the only people they fool are other liberals/leftists.
*sniff*
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