VANITY-How do I rebut a liberal who says Bush can't be trusted because he "planted" Jeff Gannon??

08/25/2005 | Self

[RockinRight]

I am on another discussion board arguing with this idiot who claims Bush can't be trusted at all, because he planted Jeff Gannon in the media to softball favorable questions yadda yadda...

[RockinRight]

The truth is I didn't follow this story that well. What's the jist? How do I rebut this moron?

[atomicpossum]

Ask him how Jeff Gannon cancels out the likes of Dan Rather.

[dirtboy]

I am on another discussion board arguing with this idiot who claims Bush can't be trusted at all, because he planted Jeff Gannon in the media to softball favorable questions yadda yadda...

You don't bother refuting such people.

You instead encourage them to keep posting more nonsense. You can't convince them that they are wrong. But you can convince lurkers that such people are complete moonbats.

[The Old Hoosier]

You're wasting your time.

[keithtoo]

I have had encounters with Lefty nutburgers as well. I would say this "Yup, you just keep believing and repeating that nonsense. And get used to losing"

You cannot reason with a nutcase.

Another tactic is this. Tell him/her, "I see by that statement that you are not a serious person". The Dim's ALL consider themselves to be very very serious people. To call them unserious is the ultimate putdown to them. It also happens to be true.

[silverleaf]

You can't rebut an idiot.
Just smile and stay informed as he continues to get his "news" from the lamestream media.

[kevkrom]

Any nutjob who's still yapping about Gannon isn't worth the trouble of talking to in the first place.

[Eagle of Liberty]

Tell him that Bush didn't plant Gannon, Rove did.

[NRA1995]

Don't rebut; rather, laugh in his face and tell him to please go on with his delusions of grandeur.....

[Dems_R_Losers]

Tell him you thought Bush is a moron, how could he be clever enough to plant a reporter? This argument always makes moonbats' heads explode.

[Brainhose]

You ignore them.
There is a whacko that calls into WRKO Boston all the time saying that Bush ordered 911, yada, yada yada.
And we don't even really know who killed Lincoln because the talk host wasn't personally there. Yes, he goes all the way back to the Lincoln assasination
These bloody people are nuts and spend way too much time listening to Art Bell.
Don't give yourself high blood pressure :)

[faq]

You could say Clinton banned a reporter for asking tough questions.
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a37f13d140eba.htm

But, I never argue with idiots.

[WoodstockCat]

you can't rebut that. If he believes that he too far gone to the moonbat side of the argument.

[RockinRight]

You're right. I just wish I could come up with some witty irrefutable statement...

[FourtySeven]

Gannon only asked one question. Even if it should be considered "softball" is up for debate since the question he asked pretty accurately described the esteemed Senator from New York, the Hildebeast. He asked something like, "How can your administration be expected to move forward with obstructionists like Sen. Clinton opposing your every move?"

The take home facts are that he asked only ONE question before he was attacked by the Daily Kos and other blogs for that question (although of course they tried to paint their attacks of Gannon as questioning his integrity as reporter, but they never had a problem with him before as long as he just didn't say anything), thoroughly trounced by their allies in the MSM, and transformed, in a matter of a week, from a "plant" into a complete pariah in all of news, much less the White House press pool. Hardly an effective "plant", wouldn't you say?

After that, if your opponent is a true leftist, why don't you ask him/her the following hypothetical question: "Would you approve of a reporter's personal life being delved into for the purposes of exposing some dirty little secret, if this reporter dared say something against President Bush? No? Well then, are you just hypocritical, or do you still support what was done to Gannon?"

[Rockingham]

Jeff Gannon, a reporter for a conservative website, was not a member of the White House press corps in the sense of having a permanent pass and badge. Instead, he was admitted to press conferences by showing up and asking to be admitted as a reporter and undergoing the security check for a daily press pass.

Local newspaper and TV reporters are allowed to also get admitted on a per day basis and commonly do. Every now and then, they get recognized and ask a question, and sometimes even 12 year old school newspaper reporters get recognized and ask a question. The process is open, democratic, and, in a phrase, is respectful of freedom of the press. Notably, the process is the same in the Bush administration as it was in the Clinton administration except for tighter security checks across the board due to 9/11.

Just what does your friend object to? Criticism of the White House and Bush personally in the Jeff Gannon kerfuffle assumes, in one respect or another, that: (1) no one in the press can legitimately ask pro-administration questions; (2) the White House is supposed to bar or admit reporters based on the anticipated nature of their questions; (3) the White House is supposed to investigate the personal lives of reporters before admitting them to ask questions, with gays barred; and (4) that Bush or anyone in the White House was party to a tactic in which a gay escort was made over into a reporter.

Points (1), (2), and (3) would all likely be held to violate the First Amendment, while point (4) is so absurd as to mark anyone who genuinely believes it as a kook. The only plausible explanation for the Jeff Gannon episode is that a gay Internet reporter of conservative views decided to go to the White House and ask questions. Just what does your friend object to?

Here is a sure fire way to dumbfound liberals: ask them to think and to back up what they say. Ask your friend if he thought up his comments on his own or of he has a source for his facts and views. Ask him to state his criticism as a general principle applicable to all administrations, including liberal Democrat administrations.

Should the White House be barred to gays? Should it be barred to gay reporters? Should gay reporters or day pass reporters not be allowed to ask questions? Are reporters not allowed to be conservatives, Republicans, or pro-Bush? Should pro-administration questions not be allowed? Should Internet reporters not be allowed into White House press briefings?

If your friend insists that the press corps is supposed to be antagonistic to the administration in power, ask him where that is laid down as a journalistic principle -- and ask why that was not the case with the White House and general press corps during the Clinton administration. If he insists otherwise, refer him to the dozen or so books by conservative reporters on Clinton's many instances of misconduct, which routinely point to the press corps's unwillingness to criticize Clinton as abetting his excesses and derelictions.

Questioning about general principles always gets liberals upset and brings out their hostile and irrational side. If there is an audience or you value the friendship, be the essence of charm and tact but make him squirm. If your friend gets upset or flummoxed, tell him to think about it and bring the matter up again at a mutually convenient time. Treat your questioner kindly as if he is a well-meaning but not very thoughtful person who just needs a little help thinking things through. Oddly, when one gets past the venom and programmed comments, many liberals are that way at heart.

[texan75010]

Give him a loaded gun and tell him it's a pez dispenser.

[RockinRight]

He used info from The Guardian mostly in his accusation.

[new cruelty]

You are debating with someone that will lock onto ANY reason to not trust President Bush. That he/she chose this reason illustrates Gannon’s assertion that liberals are divorced from reality.

President Bush had nothing to do with Gannon being at a White House press briefing, no more than he did with any of the media that attend those briefings. And if your idiot friend insists that President Bush did plant Gannon, advise the idiot that he/she should contact the media immediately, because they would love to hear of any hard evidence linking the President to such a thing.

Note that the media (liberals) targeted Gannon after he asked the President the following:

“Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the U.S. economy. (Senate Minority Leader) Harry Reid was talking about soup lines. And (Senator) Hillary Clinton was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse. Yet in the same breath they say that Social Security is rock solid and there's no crisis there. How are you going to work – you've said you are going to reach out to these people – how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?”

This is obviously not a question any of the msm would ask, for it focused on the point that liberals offer no solutions, only criticism, despair, and loathing. Indeed, how does someone work with people like that?

Hardly a softball question.

But that was enough for the msm to begin sniffing around. They learned that Gannon was actually James Guckert and that Guckert was using daily press passes after he was denied a Congressional press pass by the The Standing Committee of Correspondents because Talon did not qualify as a ‘legitimate’ new source. The blood was in the water after that. Soon after, Guckert’s personal life was put under the microscope by the msm and liberal bloggers. And we all got too see a lot more than we cared to. Even the msm backed off after they realized they too could fall under the same microscope. But the mission was accomplished. Guckert was out and the msm was restored to its bitter, scheming, state of decline. The msm tried hard to link the President to Guckert and to other dealings and actually “uncovered” a long standing practice of propaganda, wherein the White House paid the media to support their agenda. Once President Bush “learned” of the matter, he quickly put a stop to it. “I expect my Cabinet secretaries to make sure that that practice doesn't go forward. There needs to be independence… All our Cabinet secretaries must realize that we will not be paying ... commentators to advance our agenda... Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet."